


All Kinds of Lust

by dandelionpower



Category: Being Human (UK), The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Drug Use, F/M, Friendship/Love, M/M, Minor Characters Death, Prostitution, Rough Sex, Slow Build, basically it happens in Being Human world but with TAJ characters, despite the apparences this is NOT an omega verse, fang kink, vampire mating, vampire!anders AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-27 15:08:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 143,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1715000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionpower/pseuds/dandelionpower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After almost a century of exile, Mitchell decides to return to his hometown in Ireland and visit his parents' grave. In that cemetery, he meets a blond vampire whose face seems strangely familiar. Mitchell is intrigued but his curiosity soon turns into the most primal desire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Irish Cemetery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katyushha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katyushha/gifts).



> First chapter, from Mitchell's POV. Enjoy!
> 
> Thanks to my always patient and wonderful beta, the ever lovely Katyusha. xxx <3

When John Mitchell said, a hundred years ago, that he would never return to Dundalk, he should have known that one must never say never. And here he was -- in this silent cemetery covered with a fresh snow, lying on the frozen ground on his parent's grave. He had his hands under the back of his neck, watching the snowflakes falling from the grey sky. Despite the weather, he only wore a light jacket. Being a vampire had its perks sometimes: you always felt cold… so more cold didn't make much difference. The fingerless gloves gave him the illusion of warmth but John liked that illusion.

He had been wandering around Dowdallahill cemetery for about three hours before finding the tomb of James and Ann Mitchell. "Hello Ma, hello Da," he had whispered before resting his back in a nest of fresh snow. He wasn't grieving, just maybe a bit nostalgic. He thought about his family, his human past, and he was smiling. The things were so simple back then. When he was just a young Irish boy his main concerns were: do I marry the neighbour's daughter or do I go to Dublin and try to find money to open a pub?

He closed his eyes for a moment, just listening to the quiet sound of his own breathing and counting the snowflakes that were landing on his face -- little sparkles of tingling cold damp on his skin. No sounds were troubling the vampire's silent meditation, and still, at some point he started squirming uncomfortably. He had the strange feeling that he wasn't alone.

He cracked an eye open. He saw that there was indeed a man a couple tombs away. He hadn't heard or smelled him coming. Mitchell blamed this on the snow and the wind.

The stranger was looking down at a grave stone in silent contemplation and didn't seem to have noticed Mitchell's presence. The Irishman planned to close his eyes again and just ignore the other, but something held him back and instead, he found himself studying the man's profile for a while. The man was wearing a navy blue blazer with a light blue shirt and a black tie. He was dressed classy, but quite impractically for such weather. The stranger was also handsome, attractive even, no doubt.

Mitchell could acknowledge beauty in either males or females, as well as he could bed both. But he realized he couldn't tear his eyes from that specific man. The stranger seemed sophisticated, well-bred and totally out of place in such a dark and gloomy cemetery. "A flower in an ice desert," Mitchell thought, surprising himself with this outpouring of poetry. The other man had short ginger gold hair slicked back and dotted with snowflakes and a long elegant nose with a slender bridge and a round tip. Mitchell decided he liked this nose. However, the more Mitchell was scrutinizing the other man's face, the more it seemed strangely familiar to him. He could've sworn it wasn't the first time he saw him, but he couldn't recollect where or when.

Intrigued, the dark-haired vampire stood up with a feline grace. The other man seemed so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear the brunet approaching in the snow like the predator he was. Mitchell noticed that he wasn't tall, he was smaller than him but seemed to be well built. The closer Mitchell stepped, the more he found the blond interesting and attractive.

"Hi there!" Mitchell said when he was only a few meters behind the stranger.

Said stranger jumped and let out a low hiss. A dark shadow clouded his orbs for a split second when he turned around to look at the intruder.  
Mtchell didn't have to see the fangs to know the other was a vampire as well. He had already heard that kind of hiss countless times, it was the sound of a vampire ready to defend himself and the black shadow he had just seen in those clear blue eyes was unmistakable. He hadn't expect that. But at the same time, it explained the light clothing.

"What do you want?" the blond asked in an agressive tone. Mitchell was not a welcomed distaction to his musings. 

The other vampire's accent was foreign but Mitchell couldn't tell where it came from.

Mitchell showed the blond the palm of his hands to make him understand he had no hostile intentions. "I didn't expect to meet someone of my kind here," he began, "I just wanted to chat, nothing else."

The blond scanned Mitchell from head to toes. "By someone of your kind you mean…," he asked, still on guard.

"A vampire." Mitchell completed, "My name is Mitchell," he introduced himself, reaching out for a hand shake.

"I'm Andrew Johnson," he replied, still unsure, but shaking the offered hand tentative nonetheless.

' _Andrew…_ ' Mitchell tested the name in his mind. It was a sweet name. Though, it sounded odd. Somehow the name didn't fit the face. Mitchell was getting frustrated, curiosity was a frustrating state of mind and the blond's origins started to make Mitchell very intrigued. He peeked at the grave the other was standing by. "Johnson" was written on it, along with other names.

"Is it your family?" Mitchell asked politely. He didn't want to seem nosy.

Anders looked at the grave stone again. "Yes, but they are long gone now," he sighed.

The way he said "yes" made the brunet flinch, he racked his brain for all the English accents he knew but it didn't tick any boxes of Mitchell's memory, was it Australian or something? Mitchell followed Andrew's gaze and read the inscriptions on the stone again, detailing the names – Johan, Elizabet (must have been his parents), then Mikkel, Tyrone, Axl (his siblings probably), and finally, _Private Anders Johnson- Died in 1917._

Mitchell frowned. 1917. It was the same year Mitchell was turned. Andrew had a brother who had been a soldier, probably in the same regiment as Mitchell if his family was living anywhere near Dundalk during the war. Maybe they were twins. That's probably why the other vampire seemed so familiar. Maybe Mitchell had mistaken him for his brother. Sadly, he didn't remember all of his soldier companions, they were a lot of Irishmen in this regiment and even a vampire's memory had its defects after a century.

Poor lad, Mitchell mused, sparing a thought for Anders. He had been in those trenches during the war, he had seen the atrocities humans can inflict to one another and he still had compassion for people who had found death in this wretchedness. Though, Mitchell sometimes thought that his own destiny wasn't really better than dying in blood and mud for good.

"Were you born here?" The brunet questioned the other vampire.

Andrew seemed reluctant to answer at first, "Yeah, but my grand-parents are from Norway," he murmured, still staring at the grave. He stayed quiet for a moment and finally added: "After I became a vampire, I ran away to New Zealand, I lived there till now."

New Zealand. Yeah. That explained the unknown accent. This revelation made Mitchell smile widely for a reason he couldn't pinpoint. Not that it rejoiced him especially that the other had been turned -- maybe he was just happy to know a little more about this man. Mitchell erased the brilliant grin from his face and made a more vampire-like expression when he saw the handsome stranger was now glancing at him like he was beginning to question his sanity.

"Why did you come back?" Mitchell dared to ask, even if something in the way Andrew stiffened told him he had crossed a boundary he shouldn't have.

"It's none of your business!," the other snapped, his clear blue eyes suddenly blazing.

"I'm… I'm sorry, mate!" Mitchell apologized. He didn't want Andrew to run away; he was mysterious, and yeah, he was quite sexy too. The sudden anger in the blond's eyes had made him even sexier and it had wakened the beast inside Mitchell. Anger, intensity, violence… they were things that could set fire to a vampire's loins.

Mitchell's apologies seemed to take the blond aback a little for a few seconds. Vampires were not famous for saying sorry a lot. The blond's gaze seemed to soften a bit. "It's okay," he finally breathed with a forced sad smile, turning away and looking at the granite gravestone again.

That kind of smile on such a beautiful face looked like it didn’t belong there, Mitchell thought, just like Andrew didn’t belong in that cemetery. Even his name didn't seem to belong to him. Mitchell thought he would like to be the one turning this poor weak smile into a brilliant grin. Mitchell could bet the other vampire had the most amazing dimples when he was smiling for real. But the blond vampire seemed to be one of those people that, even when you know their names, remain strangers. Andrew Johnson appeared to have in him an unconquerable foreignness. The fact he wasn't able to size him up was annoying Mitchell a lot. All he could do was just watch him and try to understand.

The smaller vampire, Mitchell noticed, had pink and really shapely lips and the brunet pondered that it was probably the most feminine mouth he had ever seen on a man. However, the Kiwi had a strong jawline and a virile chin crossed by a little crease in the middle, so, despite that pouty mouth, he still looked manly. Mitchell licked his own lips unconsciously, trying not to stare too much at that tempting mouth.

In the last months, Mitchell had decided to try to lead a human life and he had got more in touch with his human side, at least the remains of the human he used to be. He had put so much effort into not being a vampire, with the help of his friends George and Annie, that he had succeeded to take at least a little distance from his inner darkness. That's why now, when the monster was rising inside, when the beast was groaning, John sometimes felt like he didn't understand its language anymore. It was good news in a way. It meant that he was able to keep it at bay, enough to make the difference between the vampire and the person he really was… but sometimes it was a really bad thing. He wasn't able to see the alarming signs anymore. When the beast chose to jump, breaking its leash, it was so sudden and powerful that Mitchell couldn't control it.

That’s exactly what happened when the wind shifted and the brunet's nostrils caught the other vampire's scent. "He smells like apple," was the first odd thought in his now weirdly fuzzy mind. The blond man smelled like apples with a hint of alcohol, like a really rich and sugary cider, and it wasn't from his aftershave or perfume. Vampires had a far better sense of smell than humans and they could distinguish and classify in their mind several odors on a human prey, like a perfumer would do, putting the essences in different labelled bottles. But Andrew wasn't a prey, he was a congener, and normally, vampires smelled like nothing to other vampires, unless they had just fed and then they would smell like blood.

There was just one other scent other than blood that a vampire could carry with him, this distinctive smell that was more powerful than any aphrodisiac, louder than any mating call. The scent of another congener: compatible and available. If Mitchell had been quick enough, he would have prayed not to smell that scent on the smaller man, but even before this possibility arose in his mind, this precise scent hit him like a train. It was earthy and musky. It wasn't the musk of fear; he knew the scent of fear too well. He had sniffed it on his panicked victims too many times, it was repulsive and it always made him want to throw up. He had quickened the death of many of his prey in the past, just to make them stop stinking.

This scent was different. It smelled like saliva, fresh sweat, breaths, naked bodies rubbing on each other: it smelled like pure sex.  
It was the last thing Mitchell wanted: for his vampire hormones to start to identify the blond as a potential mate. Mitchell tried to fight against this idea but it was too late and his rational human mind was already slipping away, the beast was howling and tugging on its chain to rejoin its coupling partner. And the chain was now made of sewing thread or something equally fragile.

"You're shaking…" Andrew observed calmly, looking down at Mitchell's hands.

"I…I'm… sorry." Mitchell mumbled, trying to hide his trembling hands in his pockets. He was thinking about trying to run away now, away from the scent, away from the torturous thoughts in his mind… like the blond's bare back, his mouth, his naked shoulders covered by tender flesh and his neck…. oh lord… his neck… He wasn't able to run away, he was stuck there, the instincts were much stronger than his will.

Andrew cocked a brow, unimpressed. "How long?" he simply asked.

The brunet let out a low pitiful whimper. Mitchell knew the Kiwi wasn't talking about the blood. He knew, Mitchell realized he knew how he was lusting about him and the brunet hated himself for that.

They weren't human, they were animals. If they had been humans, Mitchell probably would have asked him out for a drink and then, shyly tried to figure out if he was attracted to men too or just flirted shamelessly with him. And after that, they would have maybe danced around each other a bit wondering if the other was interested … but no, they weren't human and all they had was that carnal raw desire. A sudden impulsion that couldn't be stop until it's sated.

"Eleven months and sixteen days," Mitchell replied between his teeth. There had been Lauren, and after Lauren he had had another vampire for a night, he couldn't even remember his name--but after that, no one, and for a vampire, eleven months was an awfully long time.

"Ohh, I understand now," the other said with a little sympathetic smile. It wasn't the kind of smile Mitchell would have wanted to see but it was better than nothing. Obviously, he wasn't as horny as Mitchell was; he had probably found a partner recently. There were not many vampires like Mitchell, who would consciously endure the torture of being deprived of both blood and coupling for a long time.

But lately, in his quest to humanity, the Irishman had avoided his own kind, knowing how easily other addicts could just drag you down to your bad habits again.

"I better get out of here and leave you alone before I can do something regrettable," Mitchell said urgently as he felt the shaking of his body increase dangerously as all his muscles tensed like bow strings. He wanted to tackle the other in the snow and just have his way with him right then, just ravage this small compact body that seemed toned under this classy outfit.

Andrew tilted his head to the side and scrutinized the brunet for a moment, his expression unreadable. "You won't be able to," he replied and Mitchell knew he was right. The brunet couldn't help the low growl of frustration and arousal that came out of his throat.

"It's okay you know, you only need to mate," Andrew observed in a soothing voice. "That's a normal need for a vampire, I just don't understand why you deprived yourself like that. I would be happy to give you what you’re craving," he said quietly, like it wasn't a big deal at all.

"You would?" Mitchell breathed in a relieved sight. He didn't want the monster to hurt the other while trying to satisfy itself and the human part of him wanted him to be consenting.

The dark haired Irishman had met a lot of vampires in his long life and he had understood by now that being immortal didn't necessarily make you intelligent. He had met several rather stupid vampires. But obviously, the one he had beside him wasn't one of them. The way the clear blue eyes were scrutinizing him, analyzing any of his reactions told Mitchell that the blond vampire was a clever one, the kind of creature you couldn't easily fool.

"Of course, why not? I have instincts too," he reminded him, "anyway, you will hunt me until you have what you want, aren't you? Actually, I'm surprised I still have my clothes on." Andrew didn't move and just observed him, as if he was challenging and testing Mitchell's self-control.

"I'm not like other vampires," Mitchell growled but the need that was slowly sinking inside his veins, replacing his blood and burning him from inside told otherwise. The shaking had intensified and he would probably have been able to destroy anything or anyone that would have come between him and his potential coupling mate. Mitchell knew that by now, his pupils and irises probably darkened and the smaller vampire was aware of the threat he could represent if he didn't get what he wanted…

"Do you have a place we can go?" Andrew asked him calmly. Clearly, this situation was nothing new for the Kiwi.

"I'm in a guest room near Dublin Street but I took a cab to come here," Mitchell said in a laborious breath.

"I have my car," Andrew supplied, "I can drive us there if you can hold on and not assault me while I'm driving. Come on, let's get out of here." They hastened to leave the cemetery and get in the blond's expensive black SUV.

"I'm not that of a savage, I meant what I said before, I'm not like other vampires," Mitchell said as he buckled up his seat belt, but the way he was grabbing each side of his seat as if he wanted to tear the fabric wasn't really convincing.

The blond let out a little humorless laugh. "I would want to believe you," he began, "but vampires have especially big egos. We all think we are different than the others, more powerful or clever. But we are defined by what we do, and we kill, so, we are killers," Andrew added with a certain amount of wisdom, "and on that matter we are all the same -- our actions are all driven by our hunger."

"You hate being a vampire," Mitchell observed.

"The ones who say they love it are either crazy or liars," the Kiwi stated, checking his rear-view mirrors as they engaged on the highway, "we may be on the top of the food chain, we still are bloody animals..."

Mitchell didn't reply. Of course he agreed with him, just right now, being caught inside this car, surrounded by this heady smell of fruity sex that was threatening to make him lose all sense of restrain... He wanted to have this little golden haired male and he wanted him now. The leather fabric of the car seat made a noise of protestation as Mitchell's fingers pressed and crushed it in an attempt to control himself. His jaws were clenched almost painfully and he tried with all his being to delay the inevitable moment when his fangs were going to show up from arousal. He was already feeling the telltale tingle in the corner of his eyes that told him his eyes were on the verge of turning pitch black. He was staring at the road in front of the car, trying to think of something else but it was useless. At least, if he avoided looking at the other vampire, maybe he could restrain himself a little longer.

"I'm probably talking to the wrong person though, " the Kiwi continued, still on the same train of thought, " I know it's difficult to not enjoy it when they all offer themselves as dessert. With your dark good looks, you must be one of those heartthrob vamps and the human girls must be queuing up for you to drink them dry."

"Do I sense a twisted compliment here?" Mitchell questioned with a groan.

"You mean, about the dark good looks? I'm not made of wood, you know, I can see the potential," he replied, appraising Mitchell in a quick side glance. "But I must say I usually go for healthier looking vampires… sorry to be blunt but you look like shit. When did you feed for the last time? Did you decide to go monk on blood as well as coupling?"

"If I look like shit, what are you doing here with me on the way to my room?" Mitchell asked, avoiding the main question.

"I did uglier vampires than you," Andrew stated casually.

The brunet winced. "Oh thanks, I'm touched," he groaned. But sadly, the smaller man's cockiness didn't calm his ardours, quite the contrary in fact and Mitchell let out a frustrated hiss. He squirmed on his seat; he was already so hard it was nearly ridiculous. "Soon," he told himself, "soon he will be yours, just, a few, more, minutes, to wait. "

"Mating is mating. I'm not picky," the blond explained, ignoring the Irishman's growing arousal, "Vamps are all the same, anyway. I express my sense of taste when it comes to choosing my prey."

Mitchell snorted. "Do you also take their pictures with your phone before eating them, like hipsters with their Starbucks food?" The more Andrew irritated him, the more Mitchell wanted to fuck him. It was insane. Like almost everything that happened when you put two predators in a same space.

The blond threw his head back and burst in laughter. It made the brunet jump and he peek at him one second too many. Laughing like that, the blond had his neck uncovered and offered, his Adam's apple like a forbidden fruit ready to be tasted. Mitchell thought he was about to lose it, the low growl that escaped his throat was definitely not human and when he licked his lips, still staring at Andrew's neck, he nearly cut his tongue on his now fully raised fangs.

Fortunately, they were already on Dublin Street and the Kiwi parked the car on the side of the street. When he turned his head to look at Mitchell, a black shadow clouded his blue-gray irises and his jaw was slacked when he saw that the Irishman was fully vamped out and panting, looking at him and holding on desperately to the car seat.

"Okay! Easy, Tiger!," the blond said, taking a nervous look at the pedestrians in the snowy street. "There are humans around, man. You need to take back those little fangs until we have a bit more intimacy if you want us to reach your room without being staked. You are a bit of an exhibitionist, are you?"

Mitchell closed his eyes and took two deep breaths, trying to keep his instinct quiet but it was difficult. The smaller vampire was near, his delicious scent was the only thing the brunet could smell and his body was close, so close, only covered by these thin clothes. And the fact he could see the shadow of need in Andrew's eyes as well only a few seconds ago didn't help Mitchell either. Not at all. At least, he was relieved that the blond seemed to want it too.

Andrew looked a bit uneasy, not knowing what to do with the totally horny and needy vampire in his car. He made a gesture, like he wanted to pat Mitchell's shoulder but chose not to at the last moment, probably figuring out that touching him was the last thing to do.

Somehow, after a couple of deep breaths Mitchell succeeded in retracting his canines and bringing back the warm chocolate color to his eyes.

"Come on, big boy, the show must go on," Andrew smirked as he opened the car's door.


	2. Glen Gat Guesthouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitchell allowed his eyes to blacken as he turned around to appraise his trophy. The blond vampire was standing in the middle of the room, alluring and waiting, and Mitchell had no intention of fighting his instincts anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not used to write smut so I hope it's okay. 
> 
> Several hugs to my dear beta Katyusha-- without her, there wouldn't be a story. Thanks for your advices and comments, my dear. I love you. <3 
> 
> Hope that you guys will enjoy it! <3

"Which one do you want ?" the Kiwi asked, leaning back against the counter.

They were in the lobby of Glen Gat Guesthouse, waiting for the girl at the check-in to give them the key to Mitchell's room. It was one of those establishments where they ask the guest to leave their key at the front desk when they go outside. But now, the employee was having a hard time finding Mitchell's key, so she had left to another room to fetch a spare one.

The brunet was tapping his foot on the floor and his leg was shaking and he had to use all his concentration not to rip the blond's clothes right away.

Much to Mitchell's annoyance, the Kiwi was just relaxed, looking casual and laid-back. He was was clicking his tongue while waiting for Mitchell's answer. The brunet hadn't heard the question. He was too occupied restraining himself from vamping out in front of a dozen people who were seated in the tearoom of the guesthouse.

"Which one do you want?" Andrew asked again, making a chin gesture toward a table in the corner of the room. There were three young women there, drinking from their fancy cups, typing on their laptops and whispering to one another. They were probably working on some university homework. The poor girls didn't know there were wolves in the bushes around. "I kinda like the redhead," Andrew stated, "but I'm okay with any of them. What about the taller brunette? I can bait her for us."

The thought in itself made Mitchell grip the edge of the counter until his knuckles turned white. The proposition was tempting; it would have been tempting for any vampire. Still, it took Mitchell aback. The blond wanted to share a prey with him?

Mitchell tried not to think too much of it. Andrew was probably just hungry and wanted to turn their coupling into a blood bath. Though, it really wasn't common to make this kind of proposition on a first time with a stranger. Mating was one thing, hunting together was another. Vampires were like tigers, solitary hunters, not keen on sharing. When they did, it was with someone they knew… or someone they could at least control easily.

Mitchell had hunted with only one of his partners, Daisy, and when they did, they’d already known each other for a decade and had been screwing more or less regularly for several years. They had slaughter together and Mitchell was trying to forget that part of his life.

Maybe it was just a reflex for Andrew to ask that, Mitchell pondered, maybe he had someone back in New Zealand with whom he used to hunt and fuck from time to time and it was a natural thing for him to offer a prey so freely. Andrew seemed to be a well-fed and rather healthy vampire, so it was probably the case. The thought made the Irishman's own saliva turn sour. What was that disagreeable sensation? Jealousy ? He didn't give a damn about whom the blond shared his bed with….right? Why would he? As long as for the next hours he was his to ravish, he couldn't care less about who had had that body before he did. But somehow, it mattered. Maybe when he had what he craved for, he would be able to get rid of those embarrassing emotions.

"So? Which one?" Andrew insisted, with a way-too-innocent smile on his shapely lips.

The Irishman understood that the other was just playing with his self-control and testing his limits.

If Mitchell wasn't so in need of him right now, he would probably hate him for that. Oh, he still wanted to make him pay for being such an awful teasing brat. He couldn't wait to have him and turn this self-sufficient smirk into something more…. toothy, to say the least.

"No thanks," Mitchell grunted between his own teeth, avoiding looking at both Andrew and the girls. "Anyway it wouldn't be very subtle to hunt one of them here," he added as an excuse.

"You are underestimating my skills greatly," the Kiwi replied and he probably would have sounded offended if there hadn't been that carnivorous grin in his face.

The conversation couldn't go any further because the girl came back with Mitchell's key.

"I'm sorry Mr McCartney," she apologized to Mitchell, giving him his key, "have a nice evening."

"Mister McCartney, huh?" Andrew mocked while Mitchell was opening his room's door.

"Shut up, Johnson," Mitchell groaned with a slight hint of amusement in his voice as he dragged the blond inside his room and closed the door behind them. The "click" sound the door made when Mitchell locked it was the most relieving one he had heard for a long time.

They were alone, finally.

He rested his forehead on the door and inhaled Andrew's scent that had filled the room as soon as the blood had stepped in. He allowed his eyes to blacken as he turned around to appraise his trophy.

Andrew had already removed his tie and jacket and was taking off his expensive classy shoes. He tossed them carelessly on a chair.  
He was standing in the middle of the room, alluring and waiting, and Mitchell had no intention of fighting his instincts anymore. He walked toward him and cupped the Kiwi's chin in one firm hand. The bright eyes met the black ones. Andrew held his gaze, unafraid.  
"Get out of those clothes, blondie, get to the bed and show me what you can do," Mitchell murmured in a low groan.

Andrew caught the wrist of the hand that was holding his face. One second later, before Mitchell could even think about reacting, he was pushed hard into the opposite wall of the room. The air left his lungs with the shock as his back hit the wall. All he could do now was stare into very angry dark blue eyes. The Irishman felt himself growing harder as the smaller and surprisingly strong body pinned and pressed him to the wall in a way he couldn't move from an inch.

"I don't appreciate being ordered around like that, skinny brunet," Andrew sneered, his tone icy, "if you thought I would lie on my back and spread my legs obediently, you picked the wrong vampire, mate."

Mitchell tried to struggle but the blond pinned him rougher to the beige wall, bucking his hips forward viciously. The taller man couldn't help the wanton moan that escaped him. God! What a turn on it was to see the blond vampire like that.

Mitchell seemed to surrender for a few seconds. "Hmmm, yeah, that's more like it," the Kiwi said in an appreciative whisper, pressing his soft lips to the trembling man’s ear shell.

The dark haired vampire attempted to escape again, just to see what Andrew would do. He was rewarded with another imperious bucking of hips against him.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, " the blond scolded, before taking Mitchell's earlobe between his teeth.

Mitchell whimpered helplessly because he could now feel the Kiwi's erection through the fabric of his own jeans. He began to scratch the paint on the wall with his nails out of desperation as Andrew started to rut against him, slow and teasing, running the tip of his nose and his sinful lips in the crook of his neck. Mitchell let out a particularly pornographic moan and he felt the blond smile against his skin.

"You are really needy, aren’t you? We will sort it out, don't worry," the New-Zealander teased, " but you have to understand that I'm not of the submissive kind."

"Neither am I," Mitchell replied, panting, "so we might have a problem." He managed to free one of his hands and grabbed the blond's round bouncing butt and brought their erections together even closer, trapping them between their bodies.

It was Andrew's turn to groan from the sensation. "I don't think there is any problem here," he replied, his eyes turning to a fascinating liquid ebony color.

Mitchell was suddenly tackled to the floor. As he fell down under the blond man's weight, his shoulder hit a coffee table that broke in half under the impact. He didn't feel the pain and he couldn't care less. Because there was now a fully vamped out creature above him: sinfully gorgeous, mouth agape with the most exquisite fangs showing out, porcelain white and shining like nacre in the dim light of the bedside lamp. Mitchell was mesmerized and he felt his body respond to the sight as his own fangs draw out even more if it were even possible.

Andrew grabbed the nape of the brunet’s neck and crashed their lips together in a bruising kiss. They explored each other's mouths hungrily, tongues licking and tasting, testing the sharp edges of the other's canines with delight.

Mitchell circled his waist in his arms, catching Andrew off guard. He rolled over so he was now the one on top, empowering Andrew. The blond hissed at him, annoyed and aroused.

In fact, Mitchell and Andrew had left the room a few minutes ago; there were just the beasts left: a black panther and a golden leopard, two top predators, and neither was willing to give up the control to the other. The dark one had muscular legs and he was using them to straddle the other's hips in a powerful grip and keep him on his back on the plush carpet.

Mitchell inserted his fingers in the Kiwi's shirt; in the little spaces between the buttons. In one swift move he tore the fabric apart. The buttons scattered everywhere in the room. The brunet tossed the remains of the pale blue shirt away and took a few seconds to appreciate the view.

Andrew had closed his eyes, surrendering to him… for now. In fact he was probably rebuilding his strength to submit Mitchell to his own desires whenever he got the opportunity. For now, Andrew just seemed to appreciate the attention, squirming slowly and trying to get some friction from the crotch of the male above him.

Mitchell leant down to devour the blond's chest with his lips and also nip with teeth and fangs, but not enough to draw blood -- just enough to make him moan and pant. He roamed his hands on the skin of the offered chest. The human skin was always scorching, burning hot, but the vampires, since they were of the same temperature were always pleasantly warm to each other’s touch.

Mitchell didn't feel dead and cold right now, there was a fire inside him. His heart was pounding fast and he felt alive… mating was one of the few things that could make a vampire feel this way.

Mitchell removed his own jacket, his shirt and even his fingerless gloves and leaned down to lie on top of the nice warm body dusted with ginger hair. As much as Mitchell loved his females completely shaved, he loved his males nicely hairy. And the Kiwi was exactly Mitchell's type of masculine mate; he was almost too perfect to be true.

He licked a long strip along the blond's throat. Andrew's scent was heady and strong in the crook of his neck -- intoxicating. He paid good attention to the stubbled flesh covering his jugular. He could feel the blood rushing under the skin, drumming against his tongue. It would be so easy to drink from him, to taste him, and Mitchell wanted it so bad. But at the same time, he knew a bite in the neck or the shoulder was the most painful one and somehow, even if the desire was raging and overwhelming, he managed to resist. He didn't want to hurt his mating partner.

He had other priorities apart from drinking blood for now, getting the other naked, for example. The shorter vampire was making those long filthy moans as Mitchell licked his neck diligently. These sounds were driving the Irishman insane… at least, more insane than he already was.

At the same time, Mitchell sensed that the man under him was losing his patience-- his nails were scratching the skin of Mitchell's bare back. The Irishman didn't mind, he liked that, and he intended to play just a little more with this delicious sharp clawed lion cub. He trailed kisses and nips down his chest to his lower stomach and he bit gently at the hard clothed erection. He took it between his teeth and put just enough pressure for the other to feel it. He was rewarded with a groan of arousal as Andrew bucked his hips up and fisted his right hand in Mitchell's curly mane. He lifted his head to look down at Mitchell with his jet-black orbs; he was gorgeous, menacing, perfect.

The Irishman's hands reached the bottom of the other vampire's trouser legs and with all the strength a horny vampire could display, he ripped up the fabric of each leg from the bottom to the top. He soon discovered that the little minx wasn't wearing any underwear. It took him less than ten seconds to have the shorter vampire completely naked.

Andrew's legs were toned and manly but not skinny: they had just this little roundness that made them soft and tempting under the hands. Mitchell couldn't resist anymore and he bit down the flesh. The conscious part of Mitchell's mind remembered that a bite there was less painful.

The blond let out a cry of pleasure as Mitchell licked the wound and took sips of blood. The taste was always different from human blood. It was less satisfying because less sustaining but more delicate and delicious. Mitchell discovered that this precise blood tasted like the liquid version of Andrew's scent: sweet, with a hint of apple. It was almost too rich and tasty and after a few sips he had enough. He had managed not to bite too deep so he could easily seal the wound with his lips and tongue.

The blond vampire had lifted himself up on his elbows and was looking at Mitchell with a dangerous look of envy. As the Irishman was a bit lightheaded by his blood, Andrew took his chance and inverted their positions easily. Mitchell's jeans and boxers suffered the fate of the Kiwi’s trousers.

Andrew pinned the taller man's wrists to the carpet with both hands and rutted against Mitchell's hips shamelessly, sliding their wet erections together. Mitchell threw his head back and he lost himself in the sensation. His back arched to get even more friction, he couldn't have enough from the blond, this carnal thirst was both frustrating and enticing. It wasn't tender, it was urgent and rough. It wasn't about giving or receiving pleasure: it was all about taking. They were trying to take as much pleasure as possible from the contact with the other's body.

Andrew licked the junction between Mitchell's neck and shoulder, kneading the flesh with his mouth in order to draw the blood closer to the surface. When the blond bit his shoulder, the dark haired vampire hissed from the pain and shivered. Though, the sensation of the Kiwi's tongue laving the wound was soothing. But moreover, the criminal little mewls Andrew was making while taking tiny sips of his blood, turned Mitchell's pain into voluptuousness. When the blond abandoned the wound and lifted his head to look at him, his chin was smeared with blood and he looked like a kitten caught while stealing milk.

Mitchell lost it. He struggled out of the blond's grip and rolled him onto his back. He blanketed the other's body with his, ignoring his groans of protest… it was a game, they weren't only mating, they were fighting for dominance, and as delectable as he was, Mitchell had no intention of letting that pugnacious little male win. Though he liked the challenge a lot and he was more turned on that he had probably ever been in his long life.

The brunet’s hips were moving against Andrew’s who was responding with the same fervour in a venomous snake dance. The Kiwi's fingers in Mitchell's hair were pulling a bit too hard but the brunet didn't care, he grinned and hissed softly -- his vampire-way to say "you can do what you want, you are at my mercy." The sensation of their bodies rubbing aggressively on each other was intense and overwhelming. The pleasure was growing fast in Mitchell's loins. He was sweaty: a thing that doesn't happen often when you are dead. Andrew's delightful lips all red with blood, the lovely white fangs but above all, his firm stomach and rock hard cock, were too much for Mitchell to handle, especially since he hadn't mated for a long time.

He kissed the male under him hard and he came between their bodies with a loud throaty moan. A powerful shiver went down his spine. He hid his face in the blond's neck, breathing heavily.

Andrew took this opportunity to reconquer the upper position. Mitchell was exhausted so he let the other use him to get his own satisfaction. The smaller man followed him into bliss a few minutes later and collapsed on Mitchell.

The brunet closed his eyes: the weight of the other's body was a bit uncomfortable but Mitchell didn't want it to end; it felt nice. He let Andrew lick the wound on his shoulder lazily, until it stopped bleeding for good.

Andrew straightened up on his elbows and looked at the Irishman from above, still panting. Mitchell watched with fascination as the blond's fangs retracted and the black color disappeared into Andrew's pupils, like water through the hole of a sink.

Mitchell's eyes and fangs took only a few more seconds to do the same. The delicious heat the mating had elicited in him was slowly fading away as the cold of death was creeping back.

The New Zealander rolled down Mitchell's body and rested on his back on the carpet, looking at the ceiling, one of his arms across his forehead.

Mitchell turned on his side and popped himself up on one elbow, studying the other vampire who was currently ignoring him.  
Oddly, even if he was spent, Mitchell was disappointed by the fact it was already over. The brunet knew that he shouldn't even try to hug or touch the other vampire. Vampires were definitely not cuddle monsters, no pun intended. Despite that, a part of him still really wanted to hold the blond for a while-- experiment another kind of intimacy than the sexual act in itself. Mitchell bit his upper lip. Who knew that living with a ghost and a werewolf could have transformed him into such a big softy?

In the same situation, Big Bad John would have already lightened a cigarette, breathing out white puffs of smoke to the ceiling, just waiting for the other to collect his things and leave… but apparently, he wasn't that man anymore.

After a long moment of silence, Andrew rolled on his stomach and turned his head to look at Mitchell, using his folded forearms as a pillow. "Why did you bite me on the thigh?" he suddenly asked.

"I didn't want to hurt you too much," Mitchell replied, because it was the truth… and he also did that because the blond's thighs were particularly tempting, but he didn't voice that thought.

Andrew frowned. " You are a weird vampire," he finally stated, after a moment of reflection.

"Told you, I'm special," Mitchell bragged, a mocking grin quirking his lips.

Anders looked at him with the same gaze one would give to a toddler who clumsily tried to walk. "You must have been pretty young when you were transformed," he observed.

"I was 24."

"Oh, I see, I got myself a young coupling partner tonight," Andrew said, with the corner of his lips going up almost imperceptibly.

"You know, in the state we are, age doesn't really matter anymore," Mitchell pointed out.

"You're right," Andrew snorted, " at best we're dead, at worst we're old…. "

"You still look beautiful though," Mitchell whispered in all honesty. Without thinking, he reached a hand out and let his fingertips trace patterns on the smooth skin of the blond's back.

He didn't know why he had said it out loud. It was true though. Mitchell found the other vampire attractive. He had thought that maybe this impression would disappear as soon as he got what he wanted… but no, even now when he was sated, he still wanted to touch the blond and explore his body further.

Andrew gave him a quizzical look. "Thanks, but it's a given: I'm a vampire, I don't age."

"I mean, you don't seem much older than me," Mitchell said. "How old were you?"

"I was about to turn 38 when I was transformed."

"Really?" the brunet asked, eyes wide, "I mean, wow baby… you definitely look younger than that. That's … well, don't mistake me, I don't mind. I still think you are really sexy," Mitchell said, and he would probably have blushed if he hadn’t been dead. He wanted to slap himself in the face. God! Why was he acting like a total love sick teenager with a crush?

"You don't have to do that, you know," Andrew replied blankly.

"Do what?" Mitchell replied, suddenly snapped out of his reverie, seeing that the blue eyes he was admiring one minute ago were now gray, eyebrows frowning in an expression between suspicion and annoyance.

"The pillow talk, the compliments, the pet names- - it was just mating, really. And it's fine by me. You owe me nothing, Mitchell," the blond replied.

Mitchell removed his hand from Andrew's skin reluctantly and fell onto his back in order to give the other his space. What could he say anyway? That he liked him? No, he didn't love or even liked him since he had just met him. That he wanted to be his friend? Like most of their race, Andrew was probably a solitary vampire who had spent most of his life this way. He clearly didn't need any friends. How could he make him understand he cared for him, as strange as it may seem? He didn't understand why he was caring for him, though. Was it only about sexual need? Or was it about his beauty? Or maybe it was about this weird feeling of déjà vu ? He just knew he didn't want him to leave; he wanted to keep him in his arms.

He sighed when Andrew stood up without a word, collecting the remains of his clothes on the floor. His blazer, tie and shoes were intact but for his shirt and pants, that was another story.

"You ruined my clothes," he pointed, in a neutral voice. He didn't seem irritated or angry, it was just a statement.

"Oh yeah… I'm really sorry," Mitchell apologized. And he was sincere. If he hadn’t been in a sex daze, he probably wouldn't have done it.

"It's okay, I'm used to it. Do you have something I can wear?"

"Yeah ! Of course!" Mitchell hastened to reply. He searched in the mess of the drawer where he threw all his clothes as soon as he got into his room two days ago. He found a plaid shirt and some black jeans that he thought could fit Andrew's smaller frame.  
If it had come from any normal human, Mitchell would have wondered how one could be used to having their clothes ripped off their body. But Andrew Johnson was a vampire, and a rich, charismatic, good-looking, fit one… so no, it wasn't that surprising -- finding coupling partners probably wasn't a big deal for him. Sometimes, when Mitchell was reading the paper, back in England, he read news about hotel rooms completely destroyed, from the furniture to the curtains and the hotel's direction couldn't find the responsible. When he was reading that kind of news he always smiled to himself, knowing that it was probably the work of a particularly enthusiastic couple of vampires.

The sleeves of the shirt were a bit long so the Kiwi had to roll them on his forearms. "Thanks for the clothes," he said, searching in his wallet. He took 200 bucks out of it and handed the money to the brunet. Mitchell didn't make a move, puzzled.

"To repay the landlords for the table we broke and the carpet we stained," he explained. "I’d better go now."

Mitchell nodded, knowing it was inevitable. He knew if he’d asked the blond to stay the night, he would have said no. He accepted the money and walked the other vampire to the door.

They looked at each other and it was a bit awkward.

"Can I… can I have a last kiss?" Mitchell asked, trying not to sound too greedy or worse, hopeful. He regretted this request immediately. What was wrong with him to ask something like that?

Andrew hesitated, as if he was trying to figure out if it was a practical joke, or any other trick. When he saw that Mitchell was serious, he shrugged, cupped his face and complied, pressing a peck, gentle but too quick for Mitchell's liking, on the dark haired vampire's lips.  
Mitchell felt his eyes filling with tears and thought it was really pathetic. The Kiwi's hand stayed on his jaw a bit longer as he traced the contour of Mitchell's cheekbone with his thumb. "Hey, that’s fine, " he said, low and soft, showing some fondness toward the brunet for the first time. "Listen, you seem to be a pretty decent bloke for a vampire, so here is a friendly piece of advice, please don't do that."

"Do what?" Mitchell asked, confused.

"Don't think that you're falling for me," Andrew completed, " _Slàn_ Mitchell," the blond added as he let go of the brunet’s cheek and left him there.

As he watched the other vampire disappear down the inn's stairs without a look back, he realized that he had just been told "farewell" in Gaelic.

Mitchell retreated to his room, closed the door and locked it carefully. He sighed and let himself fall on the bed.

What had he done? Now he would be forced to stay locked up here for at least twenty-four hours, until the side effects of their coupling faded away. He usually didn't trust himself so much around mortals… but in that state it was way worse. Of course it increased he blood thirst, but more than that, mating, and especially drinking another vampire's blood was giving the urgent need to infect a human. That was why it didn't matter if you mated with a female or a male… because one way or another, it would awaken this desire of spreading the disease.

"Shit…," he cursed. He really had thought with his cock rather than his brain. He had stupidly succumbed to the blond's charm and to his own desire of company and hot flesh. And now he had released in the streets of Dundalk another beast that surely didn't have Mitchell's will to protect humans as much as possible. God knew how many female university students Andrew could kill in one day.

Mitchell knew he wouldn't be able to stay there and do nothing, in this little room, surrounded by the Kiwi's smell still present in the air.  
He had to find Andrew, because…

 _"because I'm responsible and I can't let him create a new vampire, "_ said Mitchell's conscience.

 _"because he was a rather good fuck and it would be nice to do it again,"_ the vampire retorted.

 _"because I want to see his face once more,"_ finally whispered the human part of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the ones who leave me comments on the first chapters, they are always appreciated! :) <3 
> 
> I had surprise days off lately, so I had time to write, but i can't tell when I will be able to post the next chapter. If you like this, put a bookmark on the story so you'll be notified when the next chapter is up.


	3. The Red Riding Hood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew looked into his closet and chose something chic but comfortable: black trousers and a blue buttoned-up shirt, it would be perfect when he would leave his room at night to go on a hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter from Johnson's POV this time. Enjoy !! 
> 
> This story is gifted to my beta and friend Katyushha because she is the Anders to my Mitchell. 
> 
> New tag: Drug Use

Like most of his kind, Andrew Johnson wasn't what you could call a morning person. The rising sun didn't give much joy to vampires who tended to escape the morning's luminary.

This morning, though, was an exception. The blond vampire woke up with a hard-on and an exceptionally cheerful mood. Last night had been good. Who knew a scrawny deprived vampire would make such a satisfying mating partner. For a random and unexpected pick-up shag, it was pretty spectacular. But living a century surrounded by New-Zealanders had taught Andrew to underplay everything so he would never admit to anybody how actually awesome it was. Though, now that he was alone, the blond vampire surprised himself by humming an old 30s song as he headed up to the bathroom.

He stripped down and fixed the empty mirror in front of him where he would have seen his naked form if he had still been a human. He let his mind go back to the last night's encounter.

He hadn't seen his reflection for a long time, but he didn't need this to know that he didn't look bad at all. But still, he was a bit taken aback by his last mating partner's behavior. Sure Andrew was used to rough sex, clothes ripping and stuff like that, that wasn't what had troubled him. The thing he couldn't get his head around was the look in Mitchell's hazel eyes after they had fucked…. fondness, interest. Maybe it was a side effect of the other's blood deprivation, Andrew pondered. Sure he had seen lust, sex and blood thirst in the brunet vampire's gaze upon him, but there was also something else, something he couldn't quite pinpoint or explain --something that had troubled him in the depth of his very soul.

It was a meaningless coupling, why was he still thinking about it? Mitchell had probably already forgotten about him. But, the Kiwi remembered that he had asked him for a last kiss… It meant nothing. He was probably just lonely.

As much as he tried to get Mitchell's imploring big hazel eyes out of his mind, Andrew could still feel the dull ache of the brunet's bite on his left thigh. It was a both annoying and pleasant reminder of last night's activities.

The least pleasant sensation was the horrible taste in the blond's mouth.

He spat in the sink and his eyes widened when he saw the color of his saliva. It was black, as if he had just drunk a bottle of Indian ink. He had coupled only a few hours ago, it was normal that his fangs, even retracted, would shed some venom in his mouth. Usually, it would be just a little bit of venom, though. It would make his saliva look vaguely gray but this coloration was completely new. He stared at his spit for long seconds, wondering what was wrong with his system. Had he caught a weird kind of vampire STD ? He couldn't be sick. He was already dead.

The blond spat as much of the dark liquid as possible and grabbed his toothbrush. He made his fangs descend and brushed his teeth with vigor before using dental floss meticulously. He had made a habit of taking good care of his teeth since they were his weapon, his tools. He was proud of his long fangs that were still as sharp as new after one century of use.

The Kiwi hadn't lied when he had said to Mitchell that he didn't enjoy being a vampire. Most of the time he regretted a life where he could have put all the girls and guys he brought back to his place in a taxi in the morning, with a false promise to call them … not put them in the back of his car in a plastic bag while searching for a shovel. No, he wasn't happy about being a vampire, but like a criminal who does body building, learns to read and starts a stamp collection while he's in prison, he had decided to make the best of this doomed life.

He got back to the bed and shoved Mitchell's clothes in a plastic bag and closed it hermetically. He didn't want to smell the brunet's manly scent anymore. Apparently it was still threatening to make him vamp out, even now. He didn't want to think about it.  
Andrew looked into his closet and chose something chic but comfortable: black trousers and a blue buttoned-up shirt, it would be perfect when he would leave his room at night to go on a hunt.

He decided to call the Imperial Hotel's front desk for room service. Some basic human food would do for now. Though, he knew his stomach wasn't really begging him for a beef stir fry. The vampire hadn't drunk human blood since he had left Auckland two weeks ago. He had planned to wait another three or four days and find a safe place to feed, probably a small village where he would be less susceptible to be on another vampire's hunting territory.

But after the rather intense mating he had had, he wasn't that careful anymore. He was craving for blood and thought he would be able to find a prey without attracting attention to himself and avoid being killed like a stupid inexperienced vampire youngling. He just wanted to feed, not turn someone into a vampire… though, all his body was screaming to do it, the venom in his mouth was stronger than ever, but after so many decades of practice, he was able to fight the effect of a coupling. Or at least, he told himself he was.

Andrew turned on the radio.

"The cold front and atmospheric perturbations are going to last for at least another three days on Ireland's east coast and we can still expect another ten centimeter of snow on Dublin and the surrounding areas…." said the woman of the weather forecast.

Andrew looked through the curtains of his room's wide window. It was still snowing in Dundalk's streets. People were hiding under colored umbrellas in this country where people were more used to rain than snow. He watched them trotting on the sidewalks, slaloming between puddles of brown slush, living their carefree little human lives.

He hadn't seen such weather for a long time; Auckland was a rather warm city. The snowy streets were bringing back long forgotten childhood memories to the vampire's mind. He remembered winters where he had played in the fresh snow with his brothers and their snowball fights. He remembered one time when Tyrone had cried the morning after, when he had seen that it was raining and the snowman they had built had melted.

He shook his head to chase the memory. It wasn't like him to be so sentimental.

"Better go back to business," he told himself out loud, turning off the radio and taking his phone from the nightstand. He sat down on the bed and dialed a number in New Zealand, he didn't even have to look at his phone -- his fingers pressed the numbers out of habit.

"Good evening, Mr. Johnson," said a polite feminine voice.

The vampire smiled, it was like coming home. "It's morning where I am, Dawn," he couldn’t help but tease her gently.

"Oh yeah, sorry… I keep forgetting about the time gap," she apologized.

"Did you feed my fish?" he asked her.

"Of course," she replied, visibly offended that her boss could think she could have forgotten any of his instructions. "I bet you are not calling me all the way from Ireland to ask me about your fish, are you? Did your researches lead to something?"

"Actually yes. It seems like the rumors were true. He is dead: killed by a werewolf a few months ago."

"Hm. It's great news for you, I guess," she mused.

"It is. But there is also his 'heir', his right arm. I couldn't trace him. Bristol vampires are calling him "Big bad John". He is keeping low profile since Herrick is dead and nobody could tell me if he still was in Bristol. That's all I know."

"But what if he finds you, what if you cross his path?" Dawn asked with concern in her voice, which didn't fail to make Andrew smile even more.

"I would stake him without hesitation and do the world a favor. That doesn't change my plans," he replied right away, playing with his key chain: a retractable stake made of hornbeam wood, one of the hardest woods in this world. He was always keeping it on him. He wasn't paranoid, just really careful.

"It's settled then, you're moving to Europe," his assistant said, clearly displeased by the prospect.

"Nope," he objected, putting his weapon back in his trousers' pocket, "WE are moving to Europe, together."

"I'm not even sure I can. And I like it here," she whined.

Andrew bit his upper lip before replying. His PA wasn't big on changes of any kind. She could pout for days whenever he rearranged the furniture in their office or even put a new painting on a wall. "I know," he started, as gently as possible, "But we have already talked about that, Dawnsie. Auckland is not safe anymore, especially for me. And anyway, soon enough some of our oldest clients will start to wonder why I haven't taken a wrinkle since they hired me as a PR twenty years ago. I'll probably leave for London in a couple days, I promise I'll try to find a nice new office, very similar to Auckland's."

"Hm. Yeah. You're probably right," she acknowledged with a sigh. "The least I can say is that since you left, you have been quite Mr. Popularity," she added with a groan.

Andrew stood up, walked to the window and leaned against the wall, looking outside. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"You’ve had a lot of visits lately."

"Who?"

"Olaf showed up one week ago," she explained. "He said he wanted to be paid for the fake passport and the last delivering of dope."  
"Did you try to pay him with dog treats?" the blond PR laughed.

"I'm pretty sure he would not have accepted, nor would he have appreciated the joke," she pointed out. "I paid him with the company's money. But I don't want to have to pay for your drugs anymore. That's not my job and I want to stay as far as I can from your fishy trades."

"Aw, don't be mad, darling," he cooed.

"I also had some 'charming' visit when I was at your flat," she continued, ignoring his attempt to coax her. The way she said 'charming' told Andrew that it wasn't charming at all. "Kylie, Sasha and Chelsie," she specified.

"Leah," Andrew corrected her reflexively.

"Yeah, whatever," she snorted.

The blond frowned. Usually, when these three were gathering in a pack, it wasn't a good thing. "What did they want?"

"They only said they wanted to know where their 'daddy' was."

The vampire's nose wrinkled in disgust at the appellation. "And what did you tell them?"

"To get lost."

He smiled. "That's my girl."

"The next time you turn a woman into a vampire, please try to choose one that is not a total bitch, okay?" she pleaded her boss.

"I'll give it my best shot," he vowed with a smirk.

"Also, you won't be pleased to know that Colin Gunderson dropped by the office on Monday. He left you a message, a pink sticky note, to be more accurate," she continued.

"Hm. What's the message? That he wants to kill me?"

"His exact words are, 'I'm going to destroy you, Johnson'," she recited, and judging by the tone of her voice, she was probably reading said sticky note.

The vampire started pacing in the hotel room. That was exactly why he couldn't live in Auckland anymore. As expected, Dawn wasn't pleased with the whole situation but he had no choice but leave… and he couldn't let his precious PA behind either. He was just relieved to know that Gunderson couldn't do anything to her while he was away.

"I haven't seen your vampire girlfriend in a while, though," the young woman added.

"She's not my girlfriend," Andrew sighed, like someone who is tired of repeating the same clarification again and again.

He wasn't surprised. Michele was probably the last person in the world who would wonder what he was doing. They were coupling and hunting together from time to time but they were both very independent. He had to admit they were getting along quite well and having fun together and their hunting styles were complementary and they were efficient when they were working as a team but it was nothing more than that between them. They were kind of friends… with benefits: read sex and blood here. The last thing Andrew Johnson wanted in his life was to complicate it with sentiments. And since Gunderson was also Michele's regular mating partner, maybe she had sided with him and wanted him dead too. One must never trust a vampire. Loyalty was a foreign concept to them.

Andrew heard a knock on the room's door. He looked into the spy-hole and saw one of the hotel employees with a tray, waiting in the corridor.

"I have to hang up, Dawn," he told his assistant. "I'll call you tomorrow or the day after and don't let Colin Gunderson bully you."

"I'm not afraid," she replied, "what can he do to me anyway? I'm dead!"

"My sympathies," the vampire joked.

"You really think you're funny, huh?" she said with faux-annoyance before wishing him a good day and hanging up.

Andrew had a smile plastered on his face when he put the phone in his pocket. But his smile fell right away when he opened the door. He closed the door quickly after he had taken his food platter, before he could start to think that the poor young employee was more appetizing than the stir fry he had ordered. He chewed the beef and vegetables without enthusiasm. They tasted like ash in his mouth. It was definitely less tasty than Mitchell's blood. He had never tasted any vampire blood so delicious and he felt his trousers becoming a bit too tight as he remembered the sight of the long line of Mitchell's pale neck. He growled as he threw away his leftovers. He wasn't pleased by the return of the tall curly haired vampire into his mind.

He spent the rest of the day in his room. He worked on his laptop and added to a coded file the last pieces of information he had gathered about Herrick and his minions. He also spent a few hours on the internet, skimming the websites of several premises renting agencies in London. At 8 PM, he had a headache and wasn't really paying attention to the several rooms, offices and buildings on the web pages; they looked all the same in his eyes. Maybe he should ask Dawn to choose one, after all it was going to be her new home and she was better than him at managing that kind of matters. The blood thirst was imposing itself and he couldn't concentrate on anything else anymore.

He added a suit jacket and a black tie to his outfit. He put some perfume, took his wallet and put a little bag of dope in the inner pocket of his jacket. He locked his room's door behind him and walked down the stairs: a killer on the road.

______________________________________________

When the blond vampire stepped in the _Emperor_ , Imperial hotel's bar & club, she was the first thing he saw: a girl, in her mid-twenties, wearing a red satin dress revealing her back and her gracious curves. She had a round but delicate face, pink cheeks, blue eyes and curly nut brown hair that was falling freely on her shoulders. She was alone at the bar and looked bored. He leant against a wall and studied his potential quarry out of the corner of his eye, pretending to be interested in the few people who were agitating themselves on the little dance floor to some silly house music. He was a careful hunter and he had to evaluate the area before making any move.

The girl speared the maraschino cherry of her Sex-on-the-beach with the pike in her glass. Andrew watched the cherry disappear between her luscious lips and he mimicked her by licking his own lips. She crossed her bare legs and the vampire's gaze followed the gesture, watching the muscles flexing under the slightly tanned skin. She was sportive, obviously. Muscular girls were always harder to feed on; they were stronger and defended themselves with more vigor. Their flesh was harder under the fangs but he didn't care, he liked challenges.

This was far too tempting. From that moment, the vampire had forgotten all the other potential preys in the room. He had chosen his victim.

She had no watch on her wrist, the Kiwi noticed, so if she wanted to know what time it was, she had to look at her phone… but said item was nowhere to be seen. Her phone wasn't on the counter near her glass. It was probably in the black purse that was hanging on the back of her chair. During the fifteen minutes Andrew had observed her, she didn't make a move to watch her phone, not even once. It meant that she wasn't waiting for anybody. She wasn't out on a date and wasn't with friends and since, she had made a conscious effort to dress sexy, do her hair and wear make-up and jewellery: a girl searching for a hook up. That was exactly what he needed. _A perfect prey_ , Andrew thought. Clearly she hadn't found yet the man she was looking for. Unfortunately for her, Andrew Johnson knew he was going to be that man.

He readjusted his tie and ran a hand in his hair. A well-cut classy suit combined with tousled hair and slight stubble: that was his best look to bait a human girl. It did the job almost every time.

The vampire sat at the counter, hailed the barman and ordered a cocktail from his own invention -- James Bond-like: "Three oz of dark rum, one point five oz of fireball cinnamon whiskey, stirred, with one dried cranberry on the bottom, no ice, served in a room tumbler… please," he ordered, pretending not to notice the girl in red who was seated beside him, though he knew she was listening with interest, not having anything else to do at that time.

"I'm afraid we don't have dried cranberries here, sir," the barman apologized.

"I'm sure you have some in the kitchen. I can wait, "the vampire retorted in a honeyed voice. The guy stayed startled for a second and left for the hotel's kitchen straight away without another word. Andrew Johnson wasn't the kind of people you disobeyed. A few minutes later, the barman was handing him exactly what he had asked for. He looked down at his drink: a round amber eye with, in the middle, at the bottom of the glass, a little red vicious pupil.

"What is this cocktail called?" a seductive voice asked him.

He turned around to face her and smiled. His blue eyes, his lips and his dimples: he knew they were his best lures and how to take advantage of them. "I called it Demon's Eye," he informed her. The name was based on a Deep Purple's song. But she was obviously too young to know that group. "It's pretty strong; it's not a cocktail for little girls," he told her.

"I'm not a little girl."

"Noo, sure you aren't," he purred. "Waiter! The same drink for the lady." He reached out to her for a handshake, "I'm Andy."

"Alana," she replied, shaking his hand. While he had her soft hot hand in his, he pressed two fingers on her wrist to subtly feel her pulse. He felt his mouth watering.

The bartender gave Alana the same cocktail and Andrew invited her to join him at a table in the corner of the club. She accepted with a sweet smile and as Andrew followed her across the room, she made her hips roll sensually as she walked, trying to get his attention. He smiled to himself. One of the most delicate parts of the hunt was done. The rest was almost a joke.

They sat side by side and started chatting. He invented himself a tragic life story to attract her sympathy and he listened to her… listening to them, smiling, making them laugh and complimenting them. It wasn't difficult. Charming them --that was something he was good at. He was like a fish in water.

Things were going quite well for him. He was about to pass to stage number two: starting to give her a few gentle touches, when he caught the scent. It was an earthy and woody smell, it reminded him of a pine forest where he used to play with his brothers. He would have recognized this scent anywhere. That wasn't one he could easily forget. He didn't have to search around, using his sight; he already knew that Mitchell was somewhere in the room. He still scanned the people in the club and spotted the curly haired man seating at the bar and talking to the barman.

The girl was still babbling but he wasn't listening to her anymore.

What was the Irish vampire doing here, in his hotel? A coincidence? Andrew didn't believe in those kinds of coincidences.

Mitchell turned around and looked at him. Their gazes met for a split second. Andrew held his gaze long enough for Mitchell to understand that he knew he was there and then he looked away, keeping a neutral face and looking at the people on the dance floor, pretending he didn't give a damn that the other vampire was there.

In fact the situation was annoying him a lot. Why was Mitchell there? Was he there to steal his prey? Probably not. Because he wanted to mate with him again ? The idea elicited a reaction in Andrew's pants, which made him even more irritated. Why would the brunet want to couple again? Didn't they have their shot already?

The other vampire had had the nerve to follow him here? Right. Andrew would give him the show he deserved.

He knew Mitchell was observing him so he got his attention back to the girl who was still chatting and hadn't noticed anything of what had just happened.

"...so, I told my sister that I didn't want to have children and have all these ugly stretch marks and she laughed at me. Can you believe that? I think people should stop shaming women who don't want to have kids."

"Hm, I do agree," Andrew replied, even if he didn't really have any opinion about that. "Your sister shouldn't have treated you like that. A smart beautiful woman like you deserves to be respected," he said softly, placing a hand on her knee and making sure Mitchell had seen the gesture. He sat closer to her and whispered some more little compliments in her ear. She blushed and giggled. It was almost too easy.

His arm circled her shoulders as he looked into her eyes with a suggestive smile. His hand made its way down her arm. She gasped when he grabbed her waist and pulled her closer. Andrew could feel and hear the enticing beating of her little heart. He peeked at Mitchell and noticed with satisfaction that he was still looking in their direction, with a murderous glare.

Alana's pupils were wide with sexual arousal. With his other hand the Kiwi tucked a brown strand behind her ear, letting his fingers linger on her face. Her pretty lips parted and he kissed her, capturing her content sigh between his own lips. He felt her body arch, searching for the contact of his own as she was pressing her breast to his chest. He kissed her with an equal passion, since he was a good actor, but a voice in his head was telling him that this was wrong. There was something missing in this kiss: dark stubble that would scratch his face, fangs to run his tongue on, a curly dark mane to put his fingers in and pull… He was kissing that sexy lass and was thinking about that bloke from last night: that was beyond pathetic. He wondered if Mitchell was still watching, if he was envying him, if he would get bored or upset and leave. Andrew wished he was very upset.

The blond vampire broke the kiss and focused on his prey again. She was all flushed from the kiss and panting, looking all pretty in her red dress and for a second he pitied her. She was just like the Red Riding Hood and she didn't know she had fallen under the claws of the big bad wolf. She was the innocent girl, he was the beast and they had to play their parts in the story until the end. It was fate.  
She offered him a mischievous smile and plunged a hand into the cleavage of her dress and took a bag of white powder from the inside of her bra – the modern variant of the picnic basket. She showed it to Andrew. "We could go somewhere more private to enjoy it, and maybe more," she purred in his ear.

"Sure, how can I resist such an offer," he answered, caressing her thigh," just give me a minute to use the loo."

"No problem," she replied.

He stood up and the first thing he did was to look towards the bar. Mitchell was gone. Andrew couldn't really tell what he felt at this realization, but it felt a bit too much like disappointment for him to be comfortable with it.

He stepped in the men's toilets; he froze on the spot as soon as his eyes met hazel ones. Mitchell was standing in front of him; his eyebrows frowned in a menacing expression.

"What do you think you are doing?" the Irishman groaned, stepping closer to Andrew and entering his personal space without any shame. They were alone in the restroom.

"I'm hunting," Andrew replied, matter-of-factly. Mitchell wasn't scaring him at all. When they had coupled the blond had had no trouble to tame the taller vampire when he wanted to. "What the hell are you doing here, anyway? Are you stalking me?"

"Are you going to fuck her?" Mitchell asked, still angry.

"Probably," the blond stated. It was a lie though. He only wanted to feed.

Andrew stayed speechless for a moment when he saw something odd in Mitchell's eyes, something like…. hurt. Even weirder was the guilt he felt himself at this sight. What the fuck was wrong with him? "That's not your bloody business," he hastened to add.

The other vampire took deep breath to calm himself but it didn't seem to work. "You can't do that," he declared.

"Why not?" the Kiwi retorted. He didn't want to be shamed by this abstinent vampire. If Mitchell wanted to stop drinking blood and weaken, that was his business, he couldn't force him to do the same. "You are living in a B&B and your clothes are all in one drawer. I don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Dundalk isn't your hunting territory either. I don't owe you anything, do I!?" Andrew snapped.

"You can't fuck her…" Mitchell repeated.

"Why??" the blond asked again, exasperated by this conversation.

Mitchell's eyes turned black. "...because you're mine," he said with a low growl that sounded like it was directly from his guts.

The smaller vampire shivered, feeling all his being responding favorably to this simple sentence. He was starting to get scared now, not scared of Mitchell but of his own reactions. "What the hell are your talking about?"

They looked at each other in silence for a moment and the Irishman's eyes got back to their usual soft brown color. "Don't deny it," he said, "you feel it as well, this attraction. You think I didn't see that little game of yours? You were far too flirty for what was needed to have this prey. Alright, you won. You have my attention now. What are you doing with it? "

"You're crazy…" the blond stuttered, even if he knew that Mitchell was right, he could feel it too.

"That's hardly news," the other laughed. "What's your room's number? I'll meet you there in ten. I can give you much more fun than that poor human girl. Leave her alone. You can take my blood instead of hers," he added in a low seductive voice, letting one of his hands roam the blond's waist and hip through his clothes.

"Knock it off," Andrew warned him and he stepped back because he couldn't let this happen, even if his mind was screaming that it was what he wanted.

"Oh no. You want it too. I can smell it on you," Mitchell continued even if he didn't make any further move to get close to the blond again. "Last night wasn't enough, not nearly enough. I'm right, aren’t I? "

"Leave me alone," the Kiwi objected weakly.

"Is it really what you want?"

"Yes. I said: leave me alone."

"Fine," Mitchell surrendered. He walked past the smaller man and opened the restrooms' door. "One last thing: don't turn her, Andrew. There are enough of those who have to live with that curse."

"I do the fuck I want," Andrew growled.

Mitchell sighed, shaking his head and he disappeared from the blond's sight.

Andrew entered a toilet stall. His hands were still trembling when he unbuckled his belt. He took a piss and as he was tucking his shirt back in the front of his pants, something attracted his attention. He slipped a hand in his jacket's pocket and found a rumpled paper sheet. He unfolded it.

_Mitchell: 0-180-189-1363, or else, you already know where to find me._

He snorted. He didn't need anything from that creepy skinny vampire who was trying to interfere in his life. He threw the piece of paper in the toilet and flushed it. He regretted it immediately and he was still trying to get rid of that feeling as he rejoined Alana at their table.

Mitchell was gone for good. He didn't see him anywhere in the club and he couldn't smell his conifer-like fragrance anymore.

He sat back at his place and took possession of the girl's mouth in a kiss full of tongue and saliva but he found it disappointing… and she wasn't that attractive after all. He wanted to feed and get it done as soon as possible.

"We can go to my car, it's spacious and I have nice leather heating seats that we could put to good use," he told her.

"Yeah, sure," she replied, unafraid.

 _Poor girl_ , Andrew thought as he reused unconsciously Mitchell's expression. _You have wandered too deep in the woods. You should have never left the path._

They left the hotel and crossed the parking to Andrew's car. Her hair was damp with melted snowflakes when they got in the back seat and he placed a hand behind her head to devour her neck with kisses. She was whimpering with abandon and the vampire could feel and even smell her blood through the weak barrier of her epidermis. The hunger was unsustainable but he didn't vamp out, not yet. He caressed her breast and took his opportunity to take the bag of drug out of her bra.

Alana leant back and looked at him, her eyes glazed with arousal and alcohol. He opened the bag and put a finger in it to taste it. It wasn't coke; it was ketamine, a tranquilizer. Perfect. He wouldn't have to use his own stuff: the GHB Olaf was providing him. At first, the blond vampire had felt a bit guilty to drug his prey before feeding on them… but after all, it was better than being forced to kill them. When they were drugged, he could drink their blood and put them into safety when he was done with them. The morning after, they didn't remember what happened. Though he had some ethics, he never slept with his drugged prey. It was the safest system he had found… and still, it had its flaws… sometimes, he just lost control and couldn't stop. He was a monster and the most ingenious plans would never change anything about it.

He took one of his under client credit card to fix a line on the inside of his forearm and reached it out for her to sniff it: which she did without hesitation. Then, she took the bag, lifted up her dress and sprinkled a bit of the illicit powder on her thigh.

"Naughty girl," he whispered before leaning down. _Unwise little girl_ , he added in his mind. He planted a kiss on her thigh, inhaled the powder and pressed another kiss at the end of the line. The image of Mitchell kissing his own thigh before sinking his fangs in it popped into his mind and he let out an imperceptible growl of frustration.

When he looked back into her eyes, he saw that the drug had kicked in and had transformed her into a ragdoll. He nuzzled her throat as she threw her head back to give him better access. He allowed his eyes to turn black and his fangs to descend. He preferred to vamp out with his face hidden in her neck so she would not panic too much.

_He was in control. He would not kill her… he controlled the situation perfectly._

But when he realized that he totally wasn't, it was already too late.

All he could see was red… and it wasn't her dress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, your comments are my fuel. 
> 
> P.S.  
> -Olaf and Andrew are not related in that story.  
> -If there is still things you don't quite understand, it's normal. I keep some mystery for now but things will get explained in further chapters.`
> 
> The Demon's Eye cocktail is my husband's invention. I never tasted it, though. Apparently, the dried cranberry has an interesting taste after it stayed in alcohol for a while.


	4. Snow Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some monsters deserve a second chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING- This chapter contains blood play, a bit of angst and a corpse.
> 
> Lot of love to my precious Katyushha, my dear friend and enthusiastic beta.

Snow Angels: that's how his mother called them – not the silly ones one makes by lying in the snow and moving their arms and legs. He was thinking about these little vortices of wind that blow the fresh snow during a storm. They always seem to come out of nowhere, lifting from the ground as the wind blows, spinning around for a moment and fading again. He remembered when he was young: he was chasing the snow angels with his dark curls tucked under his blue knitted hat. He thought they were real angels, like the ones his mother was invoking for any reasons.

Little Mitchell ran outside one day when there was a real snowstorm, trying to catch one, to bring it back to his mother who had been praying for days for Mitchell's baby sister who was really sick. Mitchell was running, and running, but whenever he saw one of those twirls and tried to catch it between his arms; he ended up with nothing in his hands but snowflakes and deception. He understood it was only snow and wind: an illusion. That day, John Mitchell lost his little sister and his faith.

 Mitchell watched the little whirlwind die at his feet and threw the remains of an unfinished Marlboro cigarette in the snow. He breathed out a long puff of smoke as he took a last look at the door of the Imperial Hotel from the sidewalk at the opposite side of the street. Andrew had told him to leave. He had tried to prevent him from turning that girl but the blond didn't want to listen to him. What could he do? He could have kept an eye on him for the rest of the night but frankly, seeing the other vampire groping this woman in front of his eyes was making him sick. Not just sick, but mad with jealousy. He had to use all his self-control not to vamp out in that club, jump across the room and claim back what he knew was truthfully his. Not the prey. Surprisingly he didn't care about the prey, even if the hunger for blood was pretty strong. It was the hunter he wanted.

Since he had been turned into a vampire, he had thought that there was nothing stronger than the blood lust. Apparently he was wrong, because the insane attraction that was bringing him toward Andrew was burning in every fiber of his being, every nerve. It was flooding into his veins like a sweet poison since the moment his tongue had tasted the other's blood. Mating with another vampire was usually giving this impression of heat but it was more like a burning coldness… mating with Andrew had left a strange warmth inside him. He wasn't sure if he could really remember what warmth felt like but he was pretty sure that it's what he was feeling. He couldn't explain what was happening; he just knew he couldn't do anything to stop it. It was already too late when he had laid his eyes on Andrew in the cemetery.  He had managed to confront the blond in the toilets. He had seen fear and confusion in his eyes. Who could blame him? Mitchell was as scared and confused.

He had put his number in Andrew's pocket, like a fisher who throws his line in the lake. He just had to wait now. One way or another, the Kiwi would come to him. He sensed it. That's why he walked in a leisured pace under the falling snow and in the angry wind back to his guest house.

 He crossed the path of several frustrated citizens, cursing about the snow on their cars, the blocked sidewalks and the slippery street. Mitchell watched them do with a slight amusement.  When you lived more than a century, the temporary contrarieties such as bad weather had proved their triviality a long time ago. Being an immortal gave you that kind of resigned patience. A three day snowstorm was less than a second on the scale of Mitchell's lifetime.  

Mitchell got to his room and took off his damp jacket. He found two glasses in the bathroom; he rinsed them for good measure and took a bottle of whiskey from the black sport bag he used as a traveling case. He poured the liquor in the glasses and let them on the mantelpiece for later use. He searched in the nightstand, in a quest for some distraction. He didn't dare to touch the bible: that was not a vampire's favorite. He was glad to find a novel, probably forgotten there by a previous guest: _Farewell to Arms_ by Ernest Hemingway. Mitchell let himself fall into the armchair and began to read. It turned out to be a love story set during the First World War. He was glad to see that its author had obviously lived in that time period because Mitchell got easily annoyed when he read things or saw movies made by people who weren't there at that time. Sometimes, they were showing that war like something heroic and glorious for the soldiers who had fought in it or sometimes they were describing it like the epitome of human cruelty and the soldiers were depicted like lost souls that enjoyed bloodshed above all. In either case, it wasn't what happened.

The Irishman was caught in the story when he heard a thump in the stairs outside his room then a muffled giggle. Mitchell frowned. There were three unsure and unequal knocks on the door. The Irishman left the book on the armchair and walked to the door.

He couldn't say he was surprised to find the blond vampire on the doorstep.

"Tada ! It's me !"  Andrew chimed in a soggy voice. His irises were entirely black in the middle of his white eyes, like holes of dark water in the ice of a lake. He wasn't vamped out, he was drunk.

Andrew leaned on the doorframe, a stupid smile tugging on his lips. "You have to invite me in," he slurred.

Mitchell's nostrils dilated as he caught the other vampire's scent. He smelled nothing but human blood. The Irishman could tell that to be in such a state, Andrew had fed at least 4 liters of it, there was no way his prey could still be alive after losing so much blood. "Get in," he sighed.

The blond vampire chuckled at Mitchell's disappointed expression; he tried to enter the room but tripped. Mitchell caught him in his arms before he could fall on the floor. 

 "Oh Andrew, what have you done," Mitchell breathed, literally carrying the smaller man to the bed.

"WoW! Already bringing me to bed! You don't waste any time I can see!" the Kiwi stuttered, his voice raspy by the abuse of blood.

Mitchell looked down at him. Andrew's dark gaze on him was unmistakably horny but he knew it was the result of the overfeeding. Though, it was still very inviting. His shirt was slightly open, showing a patch of tender skin dusted with ginger hair that promised so much more if Mitchell didn't fight the temptation. He gulped. "You're drunk, that's not a good idea."

Andrew pulled a pouting face, squirming on the bed to make room for Mitchell. "You had a totally different opinion on that matter when we were talking in the hotel's bathroom."

"You were not drunk with blood back then," Mitchell replied in a tone that he wanted cold but that didn't quite succeed at it.  

"I will die anyway," Andrew groaned, throwing his arms over his head on the pillow. "Don't you want to give a man a last night of pleasure?" he added with a wicked smirk.

"What are you talking about?"

"They caught my scent," the Kiwi explained, "Dundalk's vampires I mean. There was a dude watching me from afar when I left the hotel's parking. They know I had killed on their territory without their permission. I guess I'm no better than dead. So, let's just screw, okay?"

"Lord have mercy," Mitchell growled, rubbing his forehead. "Where is the body of your prey?" he questioned.

"In my car"

"And where is your car?"

"On Dublin Street"

Mitchell coughed not to choke on his own saliva. "You left a body in your car on one of the busiest streets of Dundalk? Are you mad?"   

Andrew seemed tense now; any flirty attitude leaving his body. "Yeah, it seems that I am! Since we mate I'm not myself anymore. I don't usually do stupid mistakes when I hunt. I guess I deserve my fate. Why do you care anyway? I just came here to allow myself a last fuck."

Mitchell chose not to answer. "We must get rid of the body, hide it," he stated.  "At least if we do that, we won't have the Irish police after our asses.  We will deal with the local vampires afterward."

"We ?" Andrew chuckled humorlessly. "There is no 'we'."

"Yeah. Suits you !" Mitchell groaned. "You involved me in your shit by coming here. Plus, I am the one you mated with last night, so I'm partly responsible for your blood rage. You're stuck with me as long as it takes to get us out of that mess."

"You are really the weirdest vampire I ever met," the Kiwi replied and he burst in laughter like it was the best joke he had ever said.

"You stay here, you lock the door and put the chain and you don't open to anybody except me," Mitchell ordered, "Give me your car keys."

"No way ! I won't let you drive my car!" Andrew objected drunkenly, trying to sit on the edge of the bed.  

"Shut up Johnson, I'm trying to save your sorry arse here!" Mitchell snapped, annoyed by the smaller vampire's stubborn behavior.

"I'm coming with you then," the blond decided, searching for his keys in his trousers pocket but it seemed to be a difficult task because it took him nearly two minutes to succeed.

"In your state you will be a nuisance," the Irishman pointed out.  

"I'm okay, I swear! " He assured, standing up with an evident difficulty.  

"You should stay here and try to sleep," Mitchell interjected. "Give me your keys."

"No!" Andrew repeated, like a five-years-old who doesn't want to share a toy.

Mitchell sighed. "If I let you come with me, are you going to let me drive?"

"Perhaps…"

"Come then," the Irishman decided, taking the blond's elbow to steady him. "Can you walk by yourself?"

"I drove here and came all the way to your room by myself, didn’t I?"

"Yeah, sure. Funny how it doesn't reassure me at all."

 

__________________________________________

 

He knew they had to do something with the corpse but now he felt a bit lost. "Where are we even going? " Mitchell asked, turning the wipers on to chase the snow on the windshield. 

"O'Bready's Foundry," Andrew answered right away, buckling his seat belt.  

The Irishman cocked a brow. Obviously the blond was drunker than Mitchell thought.  "I don't want to disappoint you but chances are that it doesn't exist anymore," he pointed out.

"I'm counting on it," the Kiwi stated, resting his head back on the seat and closing his eyes.

He seemed to know what he was doing so Mitchell chose to obey.  The brunet had to think back to a century ago to find the directions; the city hadn't changed that much but still, those were really old memories to recollect. Combining their minds, they managed to find the road that was leading out of the city where the main manufactures and industries of Dundalk were at the beginning of the 20th century. 

The ancient foundry was the last one at the end of the road, the last building before being in the country side, out of the town. The building of the O'Bready Foundry had been demolished and replaced by a scrap yard.  "Why are we here?" Mitchell questioned his companion.

"Because I need to think… and I figured out that the chances were that it was now one of the less frequented spot in town."

 Andrew got out of the car and Mitchell followed him.  The Kiwi opened the back door: an arm fell flabbily out of it.

"Jeezus," Mitchell breathed, looking at the poor girl's corpse.  At least, Andrew had done the job neatly, the car seat wasn't stained with blood. She was so pale, her skin looked white like candle wax, almost transparent. No wonder why Andrew seemed so drunk. He had literally drunk her dry.

The blond touched her forehead with the inside of his wrist, like one takes a feverish child's temperature.

"Her body's not cold yet. It's not too late. I can still turn her."

"No!" Mitchell rejected.

"My venom was especially strong, she already has it in her veins. All we have to do is to feed her." If he wanted to turn her, he had to feed her some blood quickly so she could survive the transformation. Else, she would stay as dead as she already was.

"We? I thought there was no 'we'," Mitchell snorted.

Andrew carded her hair with his fingers, clumsy due to the drunken state her blood had put him in. "Come on, you're no fun, Mitchell. Isn't she gorgeous?"

"You clearly don't know what you're saying anymore. What are you going to do with her when she's a vampire, huh ? You can't stay in Dundalk and you can't burden yourself with a youngling. You'll have no choice but to abandon her to her fate. All alone here, on her own to hunt, I don't give her more than three days until the local vamps find her and kill her. You know I'm right. They won't let a vampire from her lineage live, anyway."

"What do you mean, 'from her lineage'?"

"I guess that you're aware that almost all vampires in Ireland and Great-Britain are from Snow venom-line."

 "Well, I am a Snow too…just like you," Andrew remarked.

"You are?" Mitchell asked, surprised.  He suddenly remembered what Andrew had told him in the cemetery that he had fled to New-Zealand AFTER he was transformed. Somehow, because he was from a south pacific ancient colony, he had presupposed that he was from Illyria's line. He had thought that maybe the weird vibe he was getting, the dark fascination he was feeling toward Andrew had maybe something to do with the fact he was from a different venom-line. So, Andrew was from the same line as him after all…

Mr. Snow and his mating partner, a female vampire named Illyria, were the most ancient vampires ever known, the oldest among the 'Old Ones'. They were generally considered as the first vampires, the equivalent of Adam and Eve for the Semite religions. They were the mother and father of the vampire race. Hence, every vampire was a descendant of either one or the other. Vampirism had begun to spread in Europe in the middle ages, at the beginning of the 14th century (also called the "calamities' century" by human historians who don't know how right they are to call it that way). Thing is, at the same time the population of vampires grew, the black plague began to kill a lot of humans. The preys were rarer and vampires had to fight amongst themselves to feed.  Clans formed with members of the same venom-line and a war began between Snows and Illyrians. The vampires from Snow venom-line were known to be more violent, stronger and faster and the Illyrians to be charismatic, manipulative and clever. In the end the physical strength won and after nearly two centuries of slaughter, the remaining Illyrians took the opportunity of the discovery of new continents and islands to ride on the vessels and quit Europe to go kill and infect people in the New World and the colonies.  At least, that was the story Herrick had taught Mitchell, and from what he had heard, it was roughly the origins story all vampires knew.

"You can't turn her. Snow's or Illyria's, she'll be killed. You know I'm right," Mitchell insisted.

Andrew nodded with reluctance. They both knew that vampire younglings were just like baby turtles, so weak when they came out of the nest they could be eaten by any predators.

Vampires new-born were often not able to hunt by themselves, or, at least, not without being too reckless and over-confident. A lot of them confounded immortality and invincibility. They also tended to be arrogant and provocative toward other vampires and to get killed stupidly because of that. There was only a few of them who were lucky or clever enough to stay out of trouble and survive the first months and years of their vampire life. A vampire who wanted to keep a good number of his venom-children alive had to hunt for them and protect them until they were experienced enough to take care of themselves. Though, vampires were generally not that selfless and they abandoned their offspring. Despite that, Herrick had put a considerable effort in keeping Mitchell alive, and, for an unknown reason, he had kept the Irishman with him a long time after he’d been able to live by himself. In fact, the brunet had only known a real freedom after George had killed Herrick a few months ago.   

Andrew was still staring at the dead girl pensively. Mitchell put a gentle hand on his shoulder. He understood what was going on in the blond's mind. There was this instinct that was telling him to reproduce but also the shame and guilt of wasting a life that were starting to creep in his mind as he was slowly going back to a normal state, his system absorbing the human blood and the euphoric sensation of drunkenness fading away slowly but surely.

"It's too late, Andrew," Mitchell told him softly. "We have to endure that awful existence; we know it's not that great. I don't wish it to anybody. The best we can do for her is to let her rest in peace. "

Andrew coughed and rubbed his eyes, like he was waking up from a trance. He grabbed the girl's purse from the back seat and searched in it.

"Do you have a plan to hide the body," Mitchell asked, as Andrew was skimming through information from the woman's phone. 

"We are not going to hide it," the Kiwi stated, reading the girl's ID card," quite the contrary in fact. We are going to 428 Aisling Park."

They got back in the car, Andrew set his GPS but he let Mitchell drive.

Aisling Park Street was in a typical Irish residential middle-class neighborhood, with its rectangular gray houses, looking all similar. They were both glad to see that the street was calm and the neighbors' curtains were all drawn. Anyway with the wind and snow, the visibility was considerably reduced.  "The weather is on our side," Mitchell pointed out.

“Do you still want to help me?" Andrew sighed.  

"Yes, that's why I'm here," Mitchell answered without hesitation.

The blond took the victim's keys from her purse, "I'll unlock the door. Take the body and bring it in as soon as you're sure nobody is watching by the windows around."

Mitchell nodded. "Be careful," he murmured needlessly as he watched Andrew going to the front door of the house. The Irishman waited for a few minutes and did as he was told; taking the lifeless body between his arms like one carries a fiancée.  "I'm so sorry," he told her as he carried her inside.

The Kiwi closed the door after him, "put her on the couch and undress her."

Mitchell froze and glared at him.

"Don't look at me like that," Andrew snapped, "that's not what you’re thinking, I'm not that kind of vampire." He left the room, leaving Mitchell alone.

The Irishman decided to trust the blond and he obeyed reluctantly, trying to keep his mind blank and not thinking about what he was doing. Andrew was right when he said that the ones who say they enjoy being vampires are either completely mad or just liars.

He heard strange noises coming from the bathroom, like someone was hitting and crushing something metallic. Andrew appeared in the living room a few minutes later.

"Thanks Mitchell," he said softly, "can you take her to the bathroom and put her in the shower please?"

As the brunet put the body down on the shower's floor, he noticed that the sound he had heard was Andrew vandalizing the metallic soap-holder in a way that two small sharp metal rods were pointing out of it.

"Her soap-holder was broken, she was drugged, she tried to take a shower, she fell, stepping on the soap probably, hurt her throat with the rods, it pierced her jugular, she died losing her blood," Andrew narrated. "They won't find the blood because it went out the drain," he added, turning the shower on.

"That's crazy. No cops will ever buy that!" Mitchell protested.

"They will," the blond argued, "they will prefer that story to the hypothesis of a vampire's biting. It's more rational. Humans love rational explanations."

"But why bother with all that staging?" Mitchell wanted to know.

"Why didn't I burn her remains or buried her? Why didn't I dismember her and throw her into the sea ? Is that your question ?" Andrew hinted.

"Pretty much."

The blond man sighed, trying to calm down, not able to tear his gaze away from the poor girl. "Because I couldn't do that to her… to her family…" he explained, "that's too cruel to let them think for years that maybe, one day, she would come back. I just wanted to let them something not too ugly to mourn and bury. That's all I can do now." 

"I understand," Mitchell breathed, "you did the right thing."  He looked around in the bathroom. "Good thing we don't leave fingerprints, though."

"Yeah…" Andrew agreed absentmindedly. "Can I have a moment, please ?" he asked Mitchell.

"Sure." Mitchell left the room and waited in the corridor. He leant back on the wall and closed his eyes, feeling drained. He didn't mean to hear what Andrew was saying but he did anyway.

"I'm really sorry, Alana, " the Kiwi said," I didn't mean to kill you, I only wanted to feed. I had no excuse for taking your life. If it can appease you, your image will haunt me for the rest of my miserable life and I will never be able to forget what I did to you. That guilt will burn inside me forever. I won't fight it, I know I deserve that pain."

 

 ________________________________________

 

"I'm a monster," the blond said with anger in his voice, resting his head against the window as Mitchell drove toward Dundalk city center, not really knowing where he was supposed to go.

"So am I," the taller vampire tried to sympathize.

"No, you are a demon," Andrew corrected, opening his eyes to look at Mitchell.

"What's the difference?"

"Demons are fallen angels," he explained. "Me, on other side, I’ve never been a good person. Even before turning into a vampire, I already was a huge asshole."

"You seem a bit cocky to me, but not an asshole," Mitchell replied honestly, a bit taken aback by the hidden compliment in Andrew's statement.  

"You don't know me," the other vampire objected, "I was a real dick. I slept with my older brother's wife under his own roof at the time he was sheltering me. I also fucked my little brother's fiancée on the night of his engagement announcement. So yeah… I was a complete asshole. I think nobody regretted me when I left to join the army and nobody must have cried when I died on the battlefield."

Mitchell's breath caught in his throat at the realization, remembering the name of the soldier he had seen at the cemetery. "So… on your family's gravestone…Anders Johnson… it's you?"

Andrew frowned, realizing that maybe he had said too much. He chose to answer anyway. "Yes… it was my name, but I didn't use it since then. It reminds me too much of the asshole who thought he was a god among men."

'God', that was the word that unlocked Mitchell’s memory and everything started flooding back from the past directly into his mind. " _The Norse God"._   There was a soldier in his regiment, a small blond, everybody was calling him that. The guy had Norwegian origins. Mitchell never talked to him directly and didn't really know him and not especially wanted to. The man, he remembered, had a smart mouth, he was manipulative, devious, vain… definitely charismatic. He always succeeded in getting out of trouble with the superiors by using his charisma to his advantage, also a man who always bragged about his sexual exploits. In short, the kind of guy Mitchell avoided like a plague.  Funny how things change cause that precise man was now sitting beside him. He knew he wasn't crazy: he knew he had seen that face before. Anders died during the First World War, just like him. It could mean a lot, or nothing at all. Mitchell didn't know what to do with this new information.

 _He doesn't remember me_ … Mitchell realized. It wasn't so surprising. Self-centred persons tend not to pay attention to people around, at least when they can't have anything from them. But obviously, in a century of existence, the blond man had changed and he seemed to have sincere regrets about his past conduct with his family and about his vampire behavior. Of course, now it was too late to fix things up with his brothers. But despite his obvious will of being forgiven, Andrew couldn't have a second chance with people he had known during his human life; none of them were still there to see that he had changed… nobody but Mitchell. The dark haired vampire decided he would be the one giving Andrew a second chance.

"Stop here," Andrew ordered and Mitchell pulled the car along the sidewalk.

The New Zealander stepped out of the car. "What are you doing?" the younger asked but the blond ignored him and shut the door. Mitchell sighed and got out of the car to follow him.

He had already opened the boot of the car and had removed the floor to open the hidden compartment where the spare wheel was. There was also a metal toolbox in it from which he took a fire arm.  

"What's that?" Mitchell frowned.

"What does it look like?"

"A gun."

"I guess you have your answer," Andrew replied, setting a silencer on the black five-seven before opening another compartment in the car's floor that hid cartridge clips and a collection of wooden stakes.

"What the hell is all that? Who are you : vampire 007?"

"You better not ask too many questions, Mitchell," he snapped, annoyed.  

As he watched Andrew loading the gun like someone who did that on a daily basis, Mitchell figured out that swallowing his questions was a wise choice. "You can't go back to your hotel," he still pointed out as the Kiwi hid the gun in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

"I reckon that it would be a bad idea."

"Come to my room then," Mitchell offered, " I think it's safe enough. You'll figure out what you do in the morning."

"Okay, I can come to your room… but no sex," Andrew specified.  

After what happened after their last mating, Mitchell could understand that the blond wanted to stay out of trouble. And since he was visibly less drunk, Andrew started to have his ideas clearer. "No sex if it's what you want," the Irishman agreed.  

Since they were only a few street corners away from Glen Gat Guesthouse, they left the car there, and walked.

 

 __________________________________________

 

Far from the cold, the darkness and the death, the room was cozy and comfortable and it gave Mitchell the desire to put the other man at ease. He didn't want him to feel alone and distressed, to feel like a monster… but Mitchell didn't know how to reach for the blond man. The walls he had built around himself seemed so thick.  

"Whom was this second glass of whiskey for?" Andrew asked, suspicious, noticing the second glass on the mantelpiece.

"You," the younger vampire replied softly.  

“You were waiting for me?"

"Yes," he said, stepping closer to the smaller man.  

"You knew I would come?"

"Yes," he repeated, taking another careful step toward the blond.   

"How?"  Andrew asked, not moving away.

"I don't know," Mitchell replied in all honesty, scanning Andrew's manly silhouette with a longing stare.  "You're sexy," Mitchell murmured as he was now in the Kiwi's personal space. He couldn't help it.

"No coupling," the blond reminded him, his voice flinching a little on the last word; his good resolution vacillating under the hungry hazel eyes.  

"Yeah, we already agreed on that," Mitchell smiled.  

There was a moment of silence. They just stared at each other, vibrating in anticipation.

A second later, the blond vampire had captured Mitchell's lips in a desperate kiss and Mitchell was making his jacket slip off his shoulders. There was already no way back. The devouring carnal passion was still there, setting their bodies on fire, but since they had sated their instincts a day ago, they could at least delay it enough to make it to the bed.  Maybe they just wanted to dive in oblivion in each other's arms, just to forget that they had spent the night disposing of a body.

"I'm sorry, babe. I know we said we wouldn't, but I want you too much," Mitchell tried to apologize, though he straddled the other’s hips and was trying to unbutton the other man's shirt.   

"Will you stop calling me that?" Andrew protested, one hand fisted in the fabric of Mitchell's coat to prevent him from going anywhere, his other hand undoing his tie.

The dark haired vampire groaned in frustration, his shaky fingers were not able to divest his beautiful prize of his damn shirt. "No, I won't," he replied, tearing the shirt apart in one motion.

"I hate you," the Kiwi sneered.  

"I know you don't," Mitchell objected, blanketing the blond's half-naked body with his own, kissing and smelling the sinfully attractive skin of Andrew's neck.

Andrew threw his head back to give him a better access. He didn't reply to Mitchell's provocation which probably meant he acknowledged that he couldn't bring himself to hate the Irishman. He also let Mitchell press him into the mattress, touch him, kiss him and caress him all he wanted and he let him take control of the foreplay. He didn't try to struggle to get the upper hand of the physical exchange. Mitchell took it as a gesture of trust and confidence. Andrew seemed to be the kind of man who doesn't trust easily so it was even more meaningful. It made Mitchell want him even more.

The Irishman took off his own clothes stealthily and tossed them on the floor, his eyes never quitting Andrew who vamped out as soon as he took the sight of Mitchell's fully naked body.

Mitchell lied down again on top of the smaller male, his eyes dark to match the Kiwi's ebony orbs. He ran a thumb over Andrew's plump lips and pushed it gently inside the hot mouth to run it along one lovely fang. He pressed the pulp of his thumb on the edge; he didn't flinch but let out a small sigh of pleasure when he felt the incredibly sharp canine sink into his flesh as easily as a scalpel. The sigh turned into a moan when Andrew closed his lips around the digit and sucked softly, a filthy hum coming from the back of his throat. Mitchell closed his eyes in bliss when he felt tiny flicks of tongues on the wound. He let Andrew play shamelessly with his thumb in his mouth for a moment. Then, he pulled it out in order to caress the blond's lips with the injured digit, smearing a bit of blood there, like a dirty lipstick.

Andrew licked the blood on his lips and put an imperious hand in Mitchell's curls, dragging him down into a long lustful kiss. When they parted, the Kiwi's eyes were back to normal.  "I need it, need it so bad.  I need to mate… with you," he begged in a husky voice. He was keeping his voice low and barely audible, like he was ashamed of the strength of his own desires.

"I know, baby boy, I know, "Mitchell murmured, running a hand down his flank to reach his belt and undo it without losing any more  time," Hold on, don't worry, I'll give it to you."

 It was a bad idea. They both knew it. Mating together had a strange effect on their venom and on Andrew's part; it had dangerously compromised his control while feeding and his judgement during hunting.  Also, drinking blood had obviously made the blond hornier than ever. If they were mating now, they could be cut in a never ending vicious circle of sex and murders. It was a very dangerous game they were playing but Mitchell couldn't stop it. When those soft pouty pink lips were parting to tell you that their owner wanted you, you didn't ask questions, you didn't think, you just did it because there was no way you could resist. Mitchell understood that from then on, he was Andrew's lust's helpless servant.  

He managed to take his partner’s pants off even if Andrew was squirming on the bed, moaning whenever Mitchell's hand was accidentally brushing a patch of his leg's skin in the process. The blond seemed oversensitive, all his body screaming "touch me!" And of course, Mitchell was more than willing to comply.

He roamed his strong hands on the expanse of his coupling partner's chest, massaging, caressing, teasing, grabbing and worshipping his golden flesh. In normal circumstances and with any other mating partner, his vampire instinct would just tell him to take what he needed, not caring about the other's completion. But now he had this irrational need of satisfying the other vampire to make sure that he would not leave, that he would stay with him. All the new unexplained emotions and impulses that had invaded Mitchell's mind since the second he had laid his eyes on that man were disconcerting, but what was the point in being afraid since he couldn't fight them anyway?  Mitchell didn't believe in soul mates. That was utter bullshit and nobody would make him think otherwise. Still, there was this deep urge in his mind, like a commanding voice that was telling him that Andrew belonged to him, with him.

Mitchell's touch had made the Kiwi painfully hard and even greedier. He whined when Mitchell left his body and kneeled on the bed next to him in order to take a better view of the enticing show that was offered for him to feast his eyes on. He just watched the other vampire, detailing with delight his toned arms and shoulders, his chest and the manly neck and jaw line.

 _Such a beautiful little creature of the night_ , Mitchell thought with a mischievous smirk, both amused and aroused by Andrew's yearning. If the old tale about vampires turning into bats was true, Mitchell mused, Andrew would be one of those adorable flying foxes with a shiny pale ginger fur and big black eyes. But in fact, the blond vampire wasn't frugivorous at all and it would be a huge mistake to underestimate him. The Irishman knew he was lucky Andrew considered him as a coupling partner and not an enemy.

He made a point of not touching him until the vamped out blond was hissing at him in frustration, his hands clenching into the bed sheet. After a while Mitchell knew he was acting a bit evil toward the poor man.

"Shhh," the brunet soothed, trailing gentle fingertips up Andrew's thigh. His fingers lingered on a bite on the inside of the left thigh. Just to know and remember that it was his fangs that had claimed that tender flesh not so long ago drove him mad with lust. His bite on Andrew's thigh has nearly healed even if it happened only one day ago. On humans, vampire's venom had an anticoagulant effect to facilitate the feeding for the predator. For other vampires, on the contrary, the venom in the fangs and saliva had a coagulant, anesthetic and healing effect… along with an aphrodisiac's one.    

Andrew groaned. "Bite me," he ordered, dragging Mitchell down to the mattress with ease.   

"No," Mitchell protested in a low growl between two of the blond's passionate and forceful kisses on his mouth.  Andrew pulled back and frowned. He wasn't used to being disobeyed and rebuffed by a mating partner and Mitchell had told him "no" two times already. He could have found it annoying but instead he decided it would be so pleasant to take this pretentious brunet apart.

As much as he wanted to give his partner's what he wanted, Mitchell was still afraid of the older vampire's blood's effect on him, he didn't want to lose control and kill a human… but the freckled shoulder and the tanned neck were just there, willingly offered to his fangs, he just had to lower his head a bit to sink them in and taste the sweet nectar he knew to be unique and delectable. Andrew's lips quirked in a satisfied smirk, he could see how weak Mitchell's willpower was. "Bite me, now" he commanded in a firm tone that didn't let room for protests.  

Mitchell let out a long pitiful whimper, staring at Andrew and panting, still resisting. They were both on their side, facing each other.

The Kiwi realized he would have to take bold steps to make him succumb to temptation. Andrew brought his arm to his mouth and bit his own wrist: just a little bite, so tiny that if Mitchell licked the wound, like he expected him to, he would only be able to collect a few drops and he would have to bite again if he wanted more.

"Take my blood," Andrew whispered, bringing his bleeding wrist to Mitchell's face. "I'm giving it to you, I know you want it," he purred, nipping softly at the skin just below Mitchell's ear at the same time, making the taller man shiver with need.

"Just a tiny lick, Mitchell, please," the blond asked with his best pleading tone, "just to soothe my wrist, it hurts so much."  

Mitchell knew the last part was a lie but all his body was so tense, his erection too hard, he wasn't strong enough to fight off that impulse. He was already intoxicated by the other vampire's bewitching scent. All the rest of the world had disappeared from his eyes, mind, memory, only Andrew existed anymore: his gorgeous body, his dark eyes and those two precious red liquid pearls on his wrist that were for Mitchell like candies to a starving child.

Trembling arms circled the Kiwi's waist and pulled him against the taller body. A gentle tongue collected a droplet of blood on his wrist with a shaky relieved sigh.

"Yeah, that's it," Andrew whispered, petting the dark curls, encouraging his mating partner to lick the remaining drops.

"You taste so good," the brunet let out in an animalistic growl.

 "If you want some more," the other began, "you know what to…" His sentence was cut off by the surprised yelp that escaped his throat when, without any warning, Mitchell's fully raised fangs sank into his neck.

The surprise and the slight pain didn't last long for Andrew. Just the way Mitchell had one hand in his hair and the other between his shoulder blades, keeping him still while he was drinking from him -- he found it more arousing than he probably should and he couldn't help the delighted whimpers he was making.

If it was even possible, Andrew's blood was more delicious the second time, so rich and sweet. Mitchell licked the deep bite a last time, kissed it and grunted contently.

"You're thirsty too, gorgeous?" he asked the Kiwi.

Andrew nodded.

"I'm all yours," the brunet murmured.  

The smaller vampire stole a kiss from Mitchell's lips that were still stained with his own blood and he trailed nips down the dark furry chest to the muscular stomach, leaving the Irishman panting from the sensation of a heated mouth on him.

 Andrew drew out his fangs and bit down in the soft curve of his partner's waist. Mitchell groaned, arching his back, eyes closed in bliss, his fingers buried in the blond mane. The Kiwi had a hand firmly curled around his hip and the other resting on his ribcage, tracing soothing patterns until the anesthetic effect of his venom kicked in and erased the pain of the bite. But Mitchell wasn't really feeling the pain because he was concentrated on the enticing little slurps and happy purrs Andrew was making while sipping his blood.  

"Come here," Mitchell whispered as soon as the blond finished sealing the bite. Now that their vampire side was sated, the Irishman planned on giving Andrew what the res of his body was asking for. He wanted to possess him, claim him as his, but he knew he would be pushing his luck if he tried to top. Even just trying to lie above him once more would be hazardous. He chose another tactic.  Since they were both facing each other, he grabbed the Kiwi's hips and brought them flush against his. He was rewarded by a moan of pleasure from the other man when their hard cocks made contact.

Mitchell ran a hand on the Kiwi's well-fed little tummy and closed his large hand around both their shafts. Andrew bucked his hips and cried from pleasure and his hand grabbed the flesh of Mitchell's arse cheek, holding on to the other vampire to keep him close like his life depended on it. The Irishman put his free hand on the back of Andrew's neck and brought their foreheads together, his thumb tracing circles on the fresh bite on the blond's neck. They were both thrusting and rutting in Mitchell's fist. They tried to get as much friction as they could. The orgasm was there, insistent, on the pit of Mitchell's stomach, ready to explode.  His partner was beautiful and somehow abandoned, surrendered to the pleasure he was giving him. Andrew was really stunning, in both the human's and vampire's criteria. His vamped out eyes were of deep liquid velvety black, unlike Mitchell's that the lack of human blood had turned into a dirty dark gray over the months.

The Irishman couldn't help but follow soon after he felt Andrew coming, moaning his name.

They stayed like that for a while, sweaty forehead against sweaty forehead, strawberry blond hair tangled in brown curls and their heavy breaths mixing.

"You're still bleeding a bit," Andrew pointed out, wiping a few drops of blood above Mitchell's right hip. He brought the soiled forefinger to his mouth and licked it clean with a teasing smirk.

"You dirty little minx," Mitchell smiled fondly, brushing off a damp strand of hair from Andrew's forehead.

"I'm afraid we stained the sheet with blood," the blond remarked, "the staff will really begin to wonder what you're doing in that room."

"I really liked what I did in that room," he winked, keeping the other man close in his arms, "but we won't stay here longer, it's not safe for you, tomorrow morning we will leave for Dublin."

Mitchell anticipated to be snapped at or any other kind of rejection but instead, much to his surprise, the smaller vampire relaxed in his arms and nodded. "Okay," he whispered. His eyes were back to their usual clear blue. It was the sign that he wasn't drunk with human blood anymore. A vampire hangover wasn't agreeable at all. Once the elated feeling is dissipated, what's left of your human conscience has to face what you've done.  

" _Tá mé chomh tuirseach_ , (*I'm so tired*)" Andrew muttered in Gaelic, and Mitchell felt a shiver going down his coupling partner's spine, one that seemed rather unpleasant.

" _Tá a fhios agam. Ach codlata_ (*I know. Just sleep*)," Mitchell whispered back, "it's been a long night."

The Irishman could hear the gusts of wind and snow hitting the window of his room like the paws of a choleric wildcat. But when you're lying in a warm bed with a beautiful lover in your arms, the storm can blow all it wants outside, it's like no threat is strong enough to get to you.

The brunet tightened his embrace around the blond's cooling body and tried to kiss him but Andrew stiffened. He pushed Mitchell away gently but firmly. "I don't do cuddles," he stated.

"It's okay, sorry," the Irishman apologized, hiding the disappointment in his voice. The Kiwi rolled on his left side, turning his back on Mitchell. The brunet sighed but didn't move, letting his gaze linger on the line of the other vampire's spine in the dark.

 He slowly drifted into sleep.

Something woke him up about an hour later, something unexplained, a bad feeling.  When he opened his eyes, he saw that Andrew had curled up into a ball, his head low and that his shoulders were shaking slightly. As a reflex, he reached out a hand to touch his shoulder but didn't.  If the other vampire was crying, Mitchell's attempt at comforting him would probably just make him more upset. The Irishman had so much compassion for him; he knew exactly how Andrew was feeling, he was just frustrated he couldn't show him.

A few minutes later Mitchell jumped when he heard angry knocks on his room's door. He vamped out and hissed, sitting up and placing his body between the door and Andrew as a protective gesture. As he heard other pressing knocks, Mitchell turned around to check on his mating partner. He was awake too and seated on the edge of the bed, alerted; remaining tears on his handsome face and his nostrils flaring. Mitchell knew he too had caught the distinctive smell, or, to be more accurate, the lack of it.

"Vampire…" Andrew spat.

"Get dressed," Mitchell ordered in an urgent whisper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued.
> 
> My knowledge of irish Gaelic comes from google translate, so if there is any gaelic speaker out there who can correct any mistakes I made, I would be glad to hear your advices.


	5. A New Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even if Dawn was spending almost all her days with the vampire, her boss remained a mystery for her. In fact, she had seen so many Andrew Johnsons; she didn't know which one was the real one... until, one day, she finds him standing in front of a pile of ashes and he has no choice but to reveal his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the ever fabulous Katyushha for the betaing, the cheering and just for being an awesome friend. 
> 
> ADDITONAL WARNING: I don't think that counts as a Major Character's Death but there is a character and it dies.

Dawn started living for real on the day she died.

She never felt alive before that car hit her, that day of July on Queen's Street.  It was the middle of the afternoon and she was walking to the docks after another disastrous date with Lance. She had sent away her private driver who had been waiting for her in front of the restaurant. The young woman wanted to be left alone and be miserable in peace.

Her parents trying to hook her up with Lance was nothing else  but a business strategy. Lance's family owned a local company selling rock climbing equipment and Dawn's father was the head of a multinational based in NZ that was selling luxury sport equipment and clothes. Her father had been trying to buy Lance's company for years and his last chance to convince him to sell it was to sacrifice his middle daughter on the altar of good business opportunities. Said daughter had had little to say in the matter.

Apparently, Lance had seen pictures of her on Facebook and wanted to meet her, but Dawn knew better and she strongly suspected it was her mother who had not so subtly put a link to her profile under his nose during the last gala of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce.

"Are you sure he doesn't mistake me for Elsie or Clara?" Dawn had asked her mother, suspicious. It was a plausible hypothesis since she appeared with her sisters on several of her Facebook photos. Dawn's sisters were generally the ones attracting men's attention. Dawn was pretty and healthy but not super-model material like her sisters. They had endless legs, long blond manes, narrow waists and the attitude that came with the certitude they were beautiful. Their whole lives were oriented by regimes, fitness training and flirting. 

Dawn, on the other side, was shorter than her sisters, she had a round face, she liked to keep her hair to her shoulders, she never denied herself a chocolate chips cookie when she felt like it and she found most of the men her sisters were sleeping with to be boring and utterly uninteresting.

Because she didn't want to be the family's disappointment once more, she had reluctantly accepted Lance's blind date invitation. Her mother seemed more than satisfied to see her rebellious daughter obey for once. Dawn's behavior wouldn't seem rebellious in any other family. All she wanted was to have a simple life; have a little house of her own and a cat, study communication and maybe finances, she wanted to do politics or at least, be one of those people who walk and talk and pull the strings. She already knew a lot about public relations, attending the numerous cocktails and charity events where  her father brought her and her sisters. But, while her sisters were busy trying to catch any decent looking and rich men in their invisible fishing nets, Dawn was observing, listening and learning.

She’d always been the black sheep of the family. On her 25th birthday, her mother asked Dawn if she wanted a breast enlargement, because "Elsie had one for her 25 and it would only be fair if we paid one to you too." The young woman had suppressed an expression of disgust. "I would like to go to university, instead, please?" she had asked, full of hope. Her mother had laughed. "What for? People get education to have better wages. You are already rich, sweetheart. You don't need that. If you don't want that a boob job, we can buy you a new car. "

"I don't need another car, mom," Dawn had sighed.

"Oh I see, a boat it is, then. I should have figured out it was what you wanted. You always loved ocean," her mother beamed.  Dawn was shaking her head silently when she retreated out of the room. It was a lost cause. Yeah, she liked ocean, her mother was right about it. She liked to be alone on the beach or walk to the docks, daydreaming of a different destiny, because it was the only way she could escape that meaningless and superficial life she was forced to live. 

On that particularly chilly day, she had taken off her high heels and she was heading to the ocean, walking barefoot on the asphalt that was biting her delicate feet. Since their first date, Dawn knew it was never going to work between Lance and her. The guy was self-centred, possessive, lofty, macho, and the kind of guy who obviously needed a quiet and pretty trinket as a girlfriend. Dawn had too much self-esteem to agree to being a rich men's object. On top of that, Lance wasn't the brightest light in the room. Needless to say that Dawn was put off even before he opened his mouth… and she spent the rest of their first date wishing he could just shut it up. He, on the other side, seemed like he had enjoyed talking about himself all evening and when he asked Dawn out for a second time, her parents had insisted that Dawn gave him a second chance.

The second date was as awful as the first one. Dawn had done everything to discourage Lance, like yawning in his face after another rock climbing prowess anecdote or turn her face away as he tried to kiss her, but he didn't seem to get the message. Dawn insisted that he wasn't her type and that it was hopeless but her mother would not give up so easily. She kept on insisting that he was only shy and that Dawn would like him if she wasn't so selfish and gave him a chance to reveal his true self. Dawn had agreed on this third date like a lamb goes to the slaughter, wondering how someone who is supposed to be just a shy boy can give you the need to punch him in the face to make him shut the fu** up.

 On the day before she died, the young woman had felt sick when she had overheard a conversation on the phone between her mother and a friend. Her mother was saying that she had talked to Lance and that she was expecting an engagement announcement soon. It was during that conversation that Dawn had understood she was nothing but a piece in her family's financial chess game. Instead of feeling betrayed or angry, she had sunk in a numb, bitter resignation.

Maybe her mother was right, maybe he wasn't that bad and it was her being a bitch. She tried to see Lance in another light as she sat in front of him in that chic restaurant. When Lance had to breathe, between two sentences, Dawn took this unexpected opportunity to tell him about her dream of having her own PR agency. Just like her mother did, Lance laughed. "Why ? When you'll be my girl, with the money I'll make by selling my dad's company to your father and with your estate, you will be able to tan your little ass on the beach for the rest of your life while I'm investing and managing our fortune."

 That sentence broke something inside Dawn. The barrage was destroyed and a river of anger washed over her. He didn't see that slap coming and she swore her hand did it by its own will. She stood and sneered " my 'little ass' will never be yours, wanker!"

 _No wonder why he is still single._ She had thought, storming out of the restaurant.

She should have smiled and endured, trying to keep up the good appearances. But not anymore, this time was over… just like Dawn's life that ended fourteen minutes later.

She was blinded by her tears of anger as she crossed Queen's street. She wasn't thinking straight. She wanted to flee, to leave, to escape that life that was never really hers. A UPS postal delivery truck granted her wish.

She heard a horn and the screech of tires. There was a flash of unbearable pain, the sensation of every one of her bones breaking. She heard cries, screams, shouting voices. She felt a gentle hand slipping under her head and hold her. She managed to open her scratched eyelids.

There wasn't pain anymore; she couldn't feel her body, let alone move. The only thing she could see was a man's face framed with golden-blond hair, long enough to curl around his ears. There wasn't a smile on this face, but clear blue eyes looking at her from above with concern. 'It's an angel,' she had thought first, in confusion. 'No, angels don't wear suits and ties,' she remembered.

"Who are you ?" she had croaked weakly.

"I'm nobody," the blond man answered, "you practically landed on me."

"I'm…sorry…"

"No need to apologize," he said, reassuring, "hold on, the ambulance will be here soon."

But Dawn knew it was over, that she would not survive. Her grandmother had told her that everybody had a "messenger", someone that was there to announce their death. This blond man was her messenger, she realized. With the last strength of her blood stained fingers, she grabbed the man's jacket. "I'm going to die, am I?"

"You're losing a lot of blood," he stated, frowning, like someone who just analyzed the situation coldly. He didn't seem to pity her and she was grateful for it.   

"Thanks for being honest," she let out in a murmur and she meant it. She was feeling the last strings that were anchoring her to life breaking one by one. "What's your name?" she managed to ask. She wanted to know the name of the last being she would lay her eyes on.

The man leaned down and whispered in her ear. "Johnson."

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson," she whispered back… and those were her last words. She lost consciousness and was clinically dead before the ambulance reached the hospital.

 

______________________________________________________ 

 

She was dead, yet she was still there. Dawn was an intelligent woman; it didn't take her long to realize what was happening to her. She had seen the paramedics take her lifeless body out of the ambulance and carrying it inside the hospital. She didn't follow them. This blond woman on the stretcher wasn't her: it was nothing but a broken shell.

She thought about going back to her parents' but she knew they wouldn't be able to see her, just like the people she had tried to talk to in the hospital's parking. And there was this part of her that was content with her new freedom… That bliss didn't last for long, though. What would she do with this freedom since she couldn't interact with anybody?

She wandered in Auckland's streets all day up to the evening, alone, still wearing the grey lace dress she had put on this morning for her date with Lance. The only consolation was that she wouldn’t have to play the pretty doll for that stupid prick ever again.

She had walked at random and was now seated on a bench in an empty park. A pair of bright blue eyes was imposing themselves in her mind, the last thing she had seen before passing away. Maybe if she found her messenger it could help her understand why she was stuck here, between two worlds. She hadn't imagined that man. He existed. He was somewhere in Auckland and she had to find him.

She followed her own feet that led her to a banal apartment block, similar to all the other buildings around. She knew she was at the right place. Something had drawn here there. It was raining cats and dogs but Dawn couldn't feel the wetness of the rain on her skin; the raindrops were passing through her body to land on the sidewalk.  

She stayed a long time staring at the locked glass door before realizing she didn't have to open it to enter. She reached a hand slowly to touch the cold glass but she didn't feel the cold or the glass. Her hand passed through the transparent surface like it was only a screen of smoke. You cannot get used to crossing walls after only one try. When Dawn reached Mr. Johnson's flat upstairs, she was about to knock on the door before she remembered she couldn't do it and that the man couldn't hear or see her anyway.

 She had been raised in the good society; she was groomed to be polite in all circumstances. That's why Dawn felt embarrassed to have to enter the apartment of a stranger without being invited.

She tip toed in the flat. The decoration was modern, urban and masculine: the apartment of a professional and a bachelor. All the lights were on and the audio system was playing some indie music quietly in the background. Apparently, the tenant was home. Dawn sat on the couch, scanning the living room while she was waiting. Waiting for what? She didn't know exactly. There were no family photos on the tables or on the fridge in the little kitchen, nothing that looked like a souvenir or anything personal that could have given Dawn some clues on the kind of man her messenger was.  

 The young woman heard some ruffling in another room, there was a sound of plumbing: someone turning a shower on. Dawn squirmed uncomfortably on the couch. What if the man came out of the shower and decided to walk around in the apartment completely naked? He was home, the curtains were drawn and he couldn't know she was there after all. She started to question her own sanity. Coming here now seemed to be a really bad idea, but she wasn't able to leave.

She was lucky because the man had a blue bath towel around his hips when he came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later. As soon as he stepped in the living room, his eyes met Dawn's and he stopped. She knew instantly that he could see her. His hair was wet and a few water drops were still clinging to his shoulders. She didn't see those little details, her breath stayed caught in her throat under the intense gaze of those intelligent eyes.

He seemed surprised, like someone who doesn't expect a visit, not like someone who sees a ghost. Maybe he didn't know she was dead, Dawn pondered.

"Good night, young lady," he said, smiling. "I didn't expect company tonight. You're the girl who got hit by that truck this afternoon, right?"

She nodded, startled.   

"I'm sorry you didn't make it," he said, heading up to the kitchenette, opening the fridge and grabbing a bottle of vodka. "Why are you here?"

He knew she was dead and still didn't look afraid. Dawn had finally passed the first shock and had found her words and her courage again. "Am I really a ghost?"

"I'm afraid you are," Anders replied casually between two sips of alcohol, leaning against the counter and eyeing her with curiosity.

"Why are you able to see me and nobody else can? You're not afraid? Ghosts are supposed to be scary, aren't they?" she stuttered.

 "You're not really scary, darling," he said with a little smile, clearly amused, "I saw far more frightening things than you in my life. And you're right, humans can't see you… but I'm not human."

"You're a ghost too?"

"No. I'm a vampire," he explained, putting his glass on the counter. 

"Vampires don't exist," she objected, suppressing a nervous giggle.  

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but they do." He blinked and his eyes turned to a demonic black and long fang pointed between his pink parted lips.

The young woman screamed and threw herself back onto the couch, curling into a ball and trying to put as much distance as possible between her and the monster.

The canines retracted and Johnson blinked again, his eyes turning back to their usual mesmerizing blue.  "Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you," he said in a soothing voice. "Even if I wanted I can't, since you're already dead," he reassured her, taking back his glass from the counter.

She could see he was sincere and after all, he was right, she was kind of invincible now.

"If ghosts and vampires exist, what else does?" she asked, suddenly curious.

"Werewolves. Vampires, ghosts and werewolves, the unholy trinity."

She wanted to laugh. Werewolves. That was beyond ridiculous. But Mr. Johnson was clearly not joking.

"You're asking a lot of questions but you didn't answer mine," he pointed out. "What are you doing in my apartment?"

"You're my messenger," she simply answered, "the one who was supposed to announce my death. I think maybe you can help me understand why I'm still here."

He frowned. "I don't know what is that 'messenger' bullshit, darling, but I'm just the guy who happened to be on the nearest sidewalk when you got hit."

She locked herself up in a disappointed silence.

"I'm afraid you asked the wrong person," he continued, " I don't know you. I don't have anything to do with your unfinished business. Don't you have a family somewhere?"

Yes. She had a family. She had parents for whom she was nothing but a good to trade.

"I have nowhere to go," she pleaded, trying to look as pitiful as she could.

He sighed, walked to the couch and sat beside her. "Look, I'm sorry you're dead and all but… I can't do anything for you. You better go somewhere else. Not with me. I'm no good."

Dawn wouldn't give up without putting up a fight. She had half of her mother's genes after all. She scanned the messy coffee table when she saw several envelopes with the same logo on it, a speech bubble with the letters 'JPR' written in it. She asked the vampire what it was.

He ran a hand through his curls, clearly exasperated. He was beginning to understand he would not get rid of her that easily. 

"It's Johnson PR, it's the name of my agency."

Dawn's eyes illuminated like the ones of a child on Christmas morning. "You own a PR agency ?" 

He arched a brow. Nobody ever seemed as delighted as Dawn when discovering what he did for a living. In the ghost's mind, it was clear now that the fact she had died in that man's arms was fate.

 "It's more like a PR 'boutique', it's a small business," he explained.

Her eyes were sparkling and her expression seemed to mean "tell me more." "I always dreamt of working in a PR agency," she said, but it sounded like a plea, even to her own ears.

The vampire crossed his arms. "Forget it already," he grunted with a guarded expression, "I don't need employees and anyway, you're a bloody ghost. You'd be useless."

"Try me," she challenged him.

"Don't even think about it," he maintained, "and you have to leave now. I have a cocktail tonight at the SkyCity Grand Hotel, all the richest business men of Auckland will be there and I really need to find new clients."

Dawn's smile just widened. "I'm coming with you."

"No you’re not," Mr. Johnson protested.

"Like you could do something to prevent me," she pointed out with a wicked smile.

He bent his neck in defeat and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. "It's a good thing you're cute and dead," he sighed. 

 ____________________________________________

"Remind me why I agreed to this," the PR vampire murmured when they entered the reception lounge of the Hotel, hiding his mouth with his hand to simulate a yawn or a cough, so he wouldn't look like he was speaking to himself.

"Because you had no choice," Dawn pointed out, scanning the guests in the room and trying to prevent herself from bouncing with excitement. She knew most of them, she spotted five men she knew were investors in her father's company and she recognized at least three of his golf partners. "This is Albert Jamieson," she informed Johnson , pointing at a stout middle-aged man with gray hair, "he owns a pharmaceutical company."

"Jamieson Laboratories…" the vampire completed.

"Exactly," Dawn congratulated him with a smile, like a teacher who is proud of her student. "Do you know anything about ultimate fighting?"

"I watched a few combats on the TV. Why ?" he asked.

"He is a huge fan of UFC, especially the Australian league. He is sponsoring a few fighters in Australia and New-Zealand. If you want to seduce him, this is your key to his heart," the young woman told him.

The vampire took his phone from his pocket and connected to the hotel's Wifi to do a quick research about Australia's ultimate fighting league. "How do you know about all that?" he questioned her, scrolling down the google results.

"Does it matter?" she replied.

He lifted his eyes from his phone to scrutinize her face for a moment. She held his gaze and a small smile appeared on his lips. "I guess not. Only the results matter." He put the phone back in his pocket and headed directly toward the business man, followed closely by Dawn.

"Mr. Jamieson, it's good to see you again," the vampire said, with a large smile,  holding out for a handshake. The man hesitated for a moment, frowning, but shook his hand nonetheless.

"Sorry ? Do I know you?" Jamieson asked.

"We met very briefly at the last UFC event in Melbourne in March," the vampire lied with a bright grin.

The business man's face shifted from a guarded expression to an open, interested one. "Oh really? It was a thrilling evening, wasn't it?"

The vampire agreed wholeheartedly and as their conversation went on; Dawn had to acknowledge Mr. Johnson's acting talents. He seemed perfectly relaxed, so much he seemed to believe his own lies. Charming was obviously his strongest suit.

At some point of the conversation, Dawn leaned toward the vampire and whispered in his ear, " you must talk to him about his problems with the ICH, the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use."

He nodded subtly to make her understand he had heard it.

"Be careful," she warned him, "it's not his favorite subject at the moment, but if you convince him you can help him polish his image, he will be interested."

By the end of the evening, with the help of Dawn's judicious advice, JohnsonPR had gotten three new clients.

As the cocktail was about to end, one of the hosts took the microphone to apologize in the name of Robert Summerfield who couldn't join them tonight due to the fact his daughter had tragically perished in an accident.

Dawn shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, avoiding looking at the blond vampire who was giving her a side glance. "I understand now…Miss Summerfield, isnt it?"

"Just call me Dawn," she replied, "I don't have a family name anymore."

"I'm Andrew Johnson, but you can call me Mr. Johnson. I don't really have a first name anymore."

"Fair enough," she agreed.

"When can you start working, Dawn?"

She let the sweet feeling of victory filling her. If she could have given herself a high five, she would have. "How about now?"

 

_______________________________

 

Andrew opened the door and reached for the light switch in the dark.

"This is my office," he told her, letting her in, "but it's your home from now on."

"It's nice," she commented, looking around. It looked like a smaller version of the vampire's apartment.

"I'll work on making it more comfortable in the next few days, probably add two couches and a desk for you," he said, gesturing to the empty space at the back of the office.  

"Thanks a lot, Mr Johnson," she said, grateful. Her dream was coming true, she couldn't ask for more.

"Don't thank me. I'm nothing else than an old prick who can't let go of a good opportunity."

She chose to ignore the last statement and walked to the vampire's desk. There were several client files scattered on it. She tried to pick one up to read it but her hand passed through the paper and the desk's glass surface.

"Hm. Yeah. We are going to have to work on your poltergeist levels," the vampire commented.  

"What does it mean?" she questioned him.  

"It means that since I, as a supernatural, can see and hear you but humans can't, you are probably a 2 on the poltergeist scale. It measures your capacity of interacting with other beings and with material and physical environment. If you practice and concentrate enough, you can increase your energy and you'll be able to move stuff, use objects and devices like a computer or a phone. Maybe at some point you'll also be able to be seen and heard by some or all humans. But for now, you'll be just my advisor, I guess."

"Works for me," she chimed.  

 

_________________________________________

 

Eight years later, Dawn was still haunting JPR's office. Even if the human clients couldn't see her, with her help and advice, the agency was now a flourishing business and Andrew Johnson a very rich man. Dawn didn’t care about the money, she was just glad to work and she was getting her own satisfaction this way. Anyway, whenever she wanted something, her boss was paying for it without asking any question. By now, she was more like an associate than an employee. 

 But even if she was spending almost all her days with the vampire, her boss remained a mystery for her. She didn't feel like she knew more about him then on the day she showed up in his apartment for the first time. In fact, she had seen so many Andrew Johnsons she didn't know which one was the real one.

There was the cocky Andrew, sarcastic and clever. The poor victim of his mockeries was usually Olaf. The blond vampire was lucky that the tall bald guy had a calm temperament for a werewolf,

because the vampire never seemed to be out of ideas when it came to dog jokes. Olaf was describing himself as a hippie and was interested in only four things: surf, alcohol, drug and money—and the last one only because money was the best way to get more alcohol, more drugs and better surf boards. The werewolf was involved in almost every illegal trade in Auckland. He was the one selling to Andrew his fake identity cards, his fire arms and the drugs he needed to feed from humans, and probably other things Dawn didn't even want to know about. In exchange, Andrew was paying him more than enough and once, the blond vampire even paid a personal visit to a vampire who had tried to rape a female werewolf: Olaf's current girlfriend.

There was the violent Andrew, the ruthless: the vampire. Of course, he was that creature of the night, with long sharp fangs and black eyes, but there was also the Andrew who was sharpening his stakes and cleaning his gun with the preciseness of a trained killer. It was also the Andrew she had seen coming back home drunk in the middle of the night more than once, with dark pupils and blood on his shirt's collar.  He was never violent toward her and he avoided vamping out in her presence as much as possible but as hard as she tried, she wasn't able to completely forget her boss was a murderer.

There was the charmer, the seducer.  Dawn knew there were several vampires and mortals of both sexes sharing his bed one after another. He never seemed to get attached to any of them. There was also that Michele girl who was the most regular of Andrew's sexual partners. Dawn suspected that her boss was sleeping with her mostly to annoy Michele's "boyfriend", Colin Gundersen, one of their clients, a vampire and the biggest wanker Dawn had ever met. Even Lance was in the lower league compared to him. Andrew and Gundersen were in a never-ending cold war. Gundersen was making a point in killing all of Andrew's male venom-children and he was keeping the females for his own "harem", manipulating them and turning them against their venom-father. Andrew was testing his boundaries, trying to go as far as he could without Gundersen convincing all Auckland that Andrew was a nuisance and had to be eliminated. Auckland vampires were already not rejoiced to have to share the city's prey with a filthy Snow vampire.  The PR had to watch his back constantly, but much to Dawn's annoyance; he liked to play with fire a lot, at least with Gundersen.

There was also the sad, broken, vulnerable Andrew. Dawn used to pop by his penthouse several times a week to drop some files and on two occasions, she heard him sobbing and hitting the shower wall, cursing himself as he was probably trying to remove from his body the traces of his past crimes. She left right away, leaving him some space and she never told him she had heard it.  

There was the tender Andrew. That was the one showing up the less often. Of course, he thanked her for her tireless good work at the office, but she had witnessed a very affectionate Andrew only once.

It happened one year and a half after she had begun working for him. It was Christmas night and they had spent the day at his new luxury apartment, debating and commenting the business news of the New-Zealand Herald together. At some point in the evening, Andrew had disappeared in his bedroom and Dawn had sat on the couch. He had come back wearing a classy three pieces suit and a bow tie. "Congratulations, you are now a poltergeist level three, Dawnsie," he had told her with a smile, reaching out a hand for her to take. She had looked at her boss, puzzled.

As she didn't react, he took her hand, and that was the moment she realized that it didn't pass through the vampire's hand, she could even feel his skin. She stood up, in awe.  Gently, he brought her closer into his arms. He took her other hand and put it on his own shoulder and circled her waist. "Let's dance," he whispered in her ear with a smile. The radio was playing some slow Christmas songs and they danced around the living room. At some point, Andrew pulled his assistant even closer and the young woman felt confident enough to rest her head on the vampire's shoulder and close her eyes as they danced. "You did it," he murmured, "I'm so proud of you."

"How did you know?" she asked him.

"When we were discussing earlier, you slammed your hand on the table and it made a sound."  

She smiled and nodded in silence, closing her eyes again. She felt good against him, in that kind of intimacy free from any sexual tension.  

At the end of the song, when they stepped apart, the vampire still had this soft warm smile his assistant didn't see often on his face. "I hadn't danced since 1974," he told her, "thanks a lot."

"My pleasure," she replied, mimicking his smile. There was a ring tone and her boss checked on his phone.

"I have to go. Merry Christmas, Dawn," he said, planting a gentle kiss on her cheek before heading to the door of the flat right away. Dawn knew that he was going on a hunt with Michele, trying to drink on some poor intoxicated revellers that were leaving the Christmas parties practically crawling in the street to return home. They were some easy prey and a perfect Christmas feast for vampires.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Johnson," she said as she watched him leave, still feeling the odd sensation of his lips on her cheek.

 

_____________________________________________________

 

They managed to make their business work quite successfully and peacefully for eight years, at least as peacefully as it can go when you were a ghost working for a vampire.  But of course, it was too good to continue this way and everything had to turn to shit one day or another.

It was a warm Sunday night of December and, as usual on Sunday's evenings; Dawn was carrying a box of photocopies as she entered her boss's home. She froze on the spot and nearly dropped the box on the floor when she saw him.

Andrew was standing in the middle of his kitchen, his retractable wooden stake in his hand and, on the floor, a pile of ashes and a green dress. It surely wasn't the first time he killed another vampire, but usually, he was making sure his assistant wouldn't witness it. The blond vampire was staring at the remains of the dead vampire and didn't even look at Dawn when she entered.   

"Who's that?" the ghost asked carefully,  putting the box down onto the floor.

"Helen Larvig," he answered blankly, still not looking at her.

Dawn made a conscious effort not to panic right away. "What!? You killed her?" she asked in a high-pitched voice,  "Oh my god…It's Gundersen's venom-mother, remember? I don't think he will forgive you that one."

"I know, Dawn," he snapped. "I'm well aware of that, but I couldn't let her live. She knew too many things about me. She tried to blackmail me, menacing me to reveal it all. I couldn't let that happen."

"Reveal what exactly?"

He stayed silent.

She frowned, "I want to help you, but I won't be able to if you are not telling me in what trouble you have put yourself."

 "I'm in trouble for more than a century," he sighed. "But you're right, it's time I tell you all, I guess."

Andrew retracted his stake back in place and they sat on the kitchen's chairs.

"I'm listening," the ghost said, with the same attentive tone she had whenever her boss was telling her about a new client case.  

 "My real name is Anders Johnson. I was born on December 2, 1879, in Dundalk, Ireland. I officially died and I was turned into a vampire on September 16, 1917, during the First World War, on a battlefield in France."

"You were a soldier?"

"Yes, I was. My venom-father's name is William Herrick. I don't really remember what happened on the day I was turned; how I got attacked and bitten. There was a massive German offensive that day and I just remember there was blood and dead people everywhere. I was clinging to my gun like it was my mother and praying to stay alive. It didn't work. I woke up on a pile of corpses. As soon as I opened my eyes, another vampire named Seth immediately dragged me away, brought me to an empty ammunitions depot in an abandoned trench and tied me up to a chair. A few minutes later, said Herrick appeared and told me I was now a vampire and explained to me what it meant. I had no choice but to believe him, my new fangs were so painful as they were growing in my mouth. It was like someone was trying to brand my gums with hot iron. "

Out of sympathy, Dawn reached for him and took Anders' hand. 

"That Herrick guy was batshit crazy. He started telling me how I was one of a kind and precious to him. He was speaking to me like he was Dr Frankenstein and I was his creature. He said that immortality was nothing and that he would make me even better, even more powerful than other vampires. Usually, this kind of discourse would have seduced me. I was a power-whore back then and he seemed to know it. But I was also shit-scared and apparently, I was even more a coward than I was greedy. He said that as long as I stayed loyal to him, no harm would be done to me and I would lead a princely life. I understood that he wanted to use me as a kind of weapon and I didn't want to end up being his little thing, his puppet."

He stopped for a moment, staring at their joined hands, lost in thought. Dawn could see the remains of old fears reflecting in the blue orbs.    

"What happened after that?" Dawn pressed him gently.

"Herrick left the trench, saying he had another important matter to attend to. He left Seth to guard me but luckily for me, he was rather stupid. It only took a few minutes after Herrick left to hear the thundering sound of a first artillery shell hitting the ground and making it tremble half a mile from our position. I looked at Seth but he had orders, I understood he wouldn't move from there even if we were under the Germans' fire. The second shell explosion was even more deafening as it fell not far from the trench. I knew the next one would be directly on our heads. I had to get the hell out of there in order to save my life, or, at least, what was left of it.

I stood up and before my jailor could react, I threw myself to the wall to break the chair. The second I felt the wood breaking and the rope loosening around my wrists. I heard the shell whistle in the night air, it went through the roof and landed between us, making a cloud of dust. The shell didn't explode but it was making a hissing sound I didn't like at all. The white smoke soon filled the depot. I headed for the door as fast as possible, realizing that tear gas could also make a vampire cry even if the effect was less painful then on a human. The lack of urge to breathe had its perks. I managed to get out pretty fast, Seth didn't have my quick reaction though and I could hear him cursing as I ran into the wood like a blind man without looking back.  

I didn't know where I was or which way to go. There were sirens wailing in the distance, warning the British soldiers about the combat gases. Through the smoke, I could see dark silhouettes of enemy soldiers wearing gas masks and I didn't feel I was the scariest thing around. It was probably just dumb luck but I didn't get caught."

Dawn listened to him, speechless. She could see that bringing back these memories from the past was a painful experience, but he was doing it for her, because he trusted her like he had probably never trusted anyone and she felt touched. It was also weird because, even of he knew it before, she was realizing she had a really old creature in front of her, .  

 "I found a dead soldier and cut my ropes on his bayonet," he continued, "I was running in the woods at random and I was still wearing my uniform. I somehow ended up behind the enemy lines and been spotted. I received two bullets in my right calf. I think they are still there."

"Ohh my lord, it's so horrible," she breathed, and she squeezed his hand.

"Don't worry, I don't feel them anymore," he reassured her, "I hid in a hole in the ground for three days, scared, suffering and bleeding but not able to die. At some point, I heard some ruffling of the dry leaves; a scout from the German army was crawling past the spot where I was hiding. The poor man never understood what happened to him. He was my first kill. You never forget your first kill. In fact you never forget any of them, but the first one is probably the worst, because it's the moment you fully realize you're a monster; the stuff of nightmares. At least, I stopped suffering from my injuries and I gained enough energy to continue my escape. I put on my victim's gray uniform and was able to get out of the combat field without taking any other bullet. I wanted to put as many miles as possible between me and Herrick's madness. I knew he was going to look for me."

"But you succeeded; you escaped."

"Yes, I fled to Romania and changed my name; I learnt from other vampires that Herrick was indeed searching for me and that he had promised a reward for anybody who would bring me back to him alive and unharmed. I traveled to Russia and hid in Siberia for a few years. Then, when I felt like Herrick was about to reach me, I moved to Hong Kong where I spent nearly ten years. In 1933, I left for New-Zealand and I’ve lived here since then. I felt confident enough to take back my real last name because since I'm here, I never heard about Herrick again, not until tonight. I don't know how but Helen heard about the reward for my head and threatened me to tell my venom-father where I was if I didn't do… stuff…"

"You never got to know why you were so 'precious' to your venom-father?" Dawn asked.

"No. I don't understand. I bet he already has an army of children, he surely doesn't need me."

"Do you think Colin Gundersen knows about you and Herrick?"

"I don't know. I hope not. Though there is a good chance he will understand what happened to Helen sooner or later… One way or another I'm screwed."  

"No." Dawn objected firmly, "we will find a solution," she decided.

 

In the next days, Andrew stayed locked in his penthouse, skimming every nook of internet on some web sites he knew were places where vampires were exchanging coded information. Dawn spent a lot of money on bribes to a couple of well-informed vampires and werewolves she found with Olaf's help.  She heaved a sigh of relief when, after a week of hard work, she learnt that Herrick was dead, killed by a werewolf in Bristol.

Andrew welcomed the news carefully; it didn't solve all of his problems. It was a matter of days before Gundersen began to hunt him and take revenge. At least he knew that now, he could go back to Europe without much danger. Herrick was sorted and his minions were keeping low profile.  Maybe he could even return to Dundalk and visit his family's grave like he always wanted to do.

The day after, Andrew was in Auckland international airport, with his luggage and a plane ticket for Dublin. "I will come back soon to get you," he promised to his assistant.

She was fighting tears when she dragged him behind a column, away from humans' sight, to hug him tightly. "Be careful, okay?" she muttered against his shoulder.

"I'll try," he said, patting her shoulder gently. "I'm always careful," he added when he felt her tense. "It's not the end of the world, just a new start."

"Hm."

"Dawn?"

"Hm?"

"You can let go of me now," he chuckled.

"Sorry…" she apologized, breaking their embrace. She tightened his tie knot and dusted his suit though it was perfectly clean. "I put the notebook with the address of Olaf's contact in Dublin in your travel case. The guy will wait for you with a car and some… supplies."

"Thank you, I don't know what I would do without you, you're my pedestal, my plinth."

"You're really trying to make me cry, aren’t you?"

He smiled. "I really have to go now."   

"Go then, don't miss your flight."

She watched him crossing to the other side of the airport gate with a lump in her throat.

 

 _________________________________________________

 

"I have to hang up, Dawn," her boss told her through the phone, "I'll call you tomorrow or the day after and don't let Colin Gundersen bully you."

"I'm not afraid," she replied, taping her fingertips softly on the top of his desk, "what can he do to me anyway? I'm dead!"

"My sympathies," the vampire joked and Dawn could tell he was grinning like the idiot he was.

"You really think you're funny, huh?" she replied, rolling her eyes but she couldn't help the fond smile on her lips. He was gone for two weeks now and she was missing him already. She wasn't missing him in a romantic kind of way: that would have never been that between Anders and her. It was just that, with him gone, the office, the penthouse… it all seemed so empty.    

"Good day, Mr Johnson."

"Good night, Dawn," he replied and hung up.

She sat on the top of his desk and sighed loudly.

"So? How is the great traveler doing?" Olaf asked from the black leather couch where he was slumped, a plastic container full of chocolate chips cookies resting on his stomach. Andrew had shut down JPR since he was out of the country and hence, Dawn had nothing to do. The office had gotten as boring as a hospital waiting room if it wasn't for the werewolf's occasional visits. She hadn't told Andrew she had invited Olaf to come around; she didn't want to sound desperate.

"Everything seems to be okay," she replied distractedly, "but there was something different… in his voice… I can't pinpoint what." She pondered for a moment then shook her head to chase this thought.   

"You want a cookie? I made them myself," Olaf offered.

"I can't eat, remember?" she pointed out, "and I'm sure you put drugs in them. How many of them have you eaten already?"

He tried to count on his fingers but got lost in the process. "A few," he finally answered with a suspiciously relaxed smile.  

Olaf being stoned was nothing new.

The ghost stood up and leaned down to pick up a magazine from the coffee table but her fingers passed through the paper. She frowned and stayed startled for a moment. That kind of thing didn’t happen to her for years now, unless, of course, she consciously wanted to cross through something, like the office door on the multiple times Andrew was forgetting his keys inside. She tried to pick up the magazine again and failed.  

She didn't understand. Ten minutes earlier, she was able to pick up the phone without any problems. "I … I can't… what's happening to me, Olaf ?" she asked the werewolf, anxious, though she didn't expect him to actually have an answer.

The bald man sat and watched the phenomenon with interest. " If it's happening to you, it's probably because you're not doing your job right now."

"It's not my fault he decided to close the business while he was away!" she snapped, a bit on edge. 

The werewolf sighed and shook his head. "I'm not talking about the agency. I'm talking about your job as a guardian ghost."

Her eyes widened, either Olaf was even more wasted than usual or it was her who was too dumb to understand. "A what?"

 "A guardian-- a guardian angel like the Christians say. If your poltergeist levels are decreasing, it's because you are moving away from your purpose as a ghost; from your unfinished business. You are there to protect Johnson, to watch over him, to 'guard' him. 'HE' is your unfinished business."

"HOW!? How do you know that!?" she nearly screamed.

"I knew it the first second I saw you together," he answered, like it wasn't a big deal at all.

"AND YOU DIDN'T THINK ABOUT TELLING ME ?" she yelled.

Olaf shrugged, impassible. He shoved a cookie in his mouth. "You never asked me," he stated around his mouthful.   

She took a deep breath to calm down and brushed her gray dress, straightening it around her hips. Her mind was spinning to assimilate the information. Something suddenly struck her.

"But… if I'm weakening because I'm not doing my job as a protector… does that mean he is in danger right now?" she asked.  

"Well…," Olaf began, lying on the couch again, "seems obvious to me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked ! Next chapter will be from Andrew's POV. :) 
> 
> Thanks for leaving kudos and to write comments, they are my fuel. :)


	6. Wolf-shaped Bullets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -"Don't let them hurt you," he simply told Andrew. 
> 
> -"Mitchell…" Andrew breathed. There were so many things in that simple word: fear, incomprehension, disbelief, helplessness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied in the notes at the end of my last chapter, this chapter somehow ended up being from Mitchell's POV for the first part and from Andrew's for the second part. Forgive me my sins.
> 
> Thanks to my young wild flower of a beta: Katyushha <3 ;) 
> 
> WARNINGS- This story is already tagged with "violent content", it's the case for that chapter.

Mitchell remembered he had torn the blond's shirt apart and that Andrew didn't have anything to wear except for his trousers he had already put on in a hurry. The brunet took a t-shirt at random in his drawer and tossed it in Andrew's general direction.  

The knocks on the door were more and more insistent.

Andrew caught the yellow long sleeved t-shirt and gave Mitchell a look of disgust, holding out the offending piece of clothing between his thumb and his forefinger as if it was full of cockroaches. "No way !" he mouthed silently.

Mitchell rolled his eyes, snatched the shirt from the other vampire's hands, put it on and tossed a plain red v-neck t-shirt to the blond.

While Andrew was putting on his suit jacket above the t-shirt, Mitchell took a quick look through the spy-hole.

"One male, he seems alone," he informed the Kiwi in a brief whisper.

"Let him in or he won't stop knocking and he will wake up the whole guesthouse," Andrew demanded.  

"You're mad! This guy wants to kill you!" Mitchell objected.

"Trust me, let him in and I'll do the rest," the other replied, obviously unafraid. He placed himself against the wall, so the door would hide him when Mitchell would open it.  Andrew nodded to make Mitchell understand he was ready.

Mitchell turned the handle and he was blinded for a second by the artificial light that inundated his room from the corridor. The stranger must have been turned into vampire in his mid-thirties; he had really short hair (like the haircut of an American marine) and nasty dark brown eyes.  He wasn't especially tall but stout and strong.  

"Where is he?" was the man's question as soon as Mitchell opened the door.

"I don't know what you're talking about, mate, do you know what time it is?" the Irishman replied, playing the poor costumer woken up in the middle of the night for nothing.

"Don't lie, I saw you getting back here together," the stranger objected.

"Who?" Mitchell asked, still playing dumb.

 "You know who I'm talking about," the other insisted, putting his hands on each side of the doorframe in a threatening attitude, "but you don't want us to have this little discussion on your doorstep, do you?"

"He's not here. But I know where he is. If I rat him out, what do I get in exchange?" Mitchell asked.

The burly man arched an eyebrow; he couldn't really threaten Mitchell to kill him because he couldn't get to him as long as the brunet didn't invite him in his room. Mitchell was giving him the perfect excuse; he just had to pretend he wanted to negotiate to be able to get in the room. At least, it was what Mitchell wanted him to think. It seemed to work because the stranger gave him a hypocrite smile before saying, "I know a place in Dunleer, for a good price you can have anything you want to feed or couple. I just have a call to make. I know Felicity, the landlady."

Mitchell knew that he was talking about a vampire brothel. Herrick had brought him to one of those places when they were in Romania. This kind of establishment were very selected and private clubs, you can't go there if you're not invited or if you're not introduced by a regular customer. Most places had both vampire and human prostitutes but the word 'slaves' would be more appropriate to describe them. The humans were mainly there to feed from. The vampire prostitutes were often the human ones who had been turned by customers.  Some brothels also had werewolves they were keeping in cages. Brothels ruled by humans were like kindergardens compared to the ones from vampire's world.  Mitchell had had to pretend he was enjoying himself, but the sight of such misery had made him nauseous and despite Herrick's insistence, he had always made excuses not to enter such a place anymore.

"Do they have male vampires?" Mitchell asked with a fake interest. "I especially love blond ones," he added. He couldn't help but tease the Kiwi who was still hiding behind the door.

"Course they do, they have anything to satisfy your most kinky desires," the other vampire smirked.  

"Okay. Come in, then," Mitchell said. Apparently the stranger had believed in the character of the perverse vampire he was playing.

 But clearly, the vampire didn't have any real intention to make an exchange of information because as soon as he stepped in, he grabbed Mitchell by the throat with one strong hand. "You're going to tell me where he is, or it'll end badly for you. Speak, or I swear I'll…" he couldn't finish his sentence because the cold barrel of Andrew's silenced gun was pressing on his temple.

"Oh I don't think you'll do anything," the Kiwi corrected him before pulling the trigger.The gun made a quiet sound, like a discreet cough and the intruder jerked back and fell onto the floor.

"Close the door!" Andrew ordered and Mitchell did as asked as he watched the blond put two more bullets in the vampire's brain for good measure as the stranger's body was agitated with spasms on the room's carpet. The whole murder didn't make a sound. The carpet even absorbed the sound of the bullet casings falling on it.

 "What the fuck was that!!??" Mitchell whisper-shouted, shocked, still trying to process what just happened in front of his eyes.    

"I killed him," the Kiwi replied, matter-of-factly, looking at the brunet as he didn't seem to understand his trouble.  

"Bullets don't kill vampires," Mitchell pointed out.  

"He won't stand up again," Andrew stated. "We call them 'wolf shaped' bullets; there is a glass capsule of werewolf blood in each hollow point jacket. The bullet penetrates only superficially and makes the glass capsule explode in the flesh," he explained. "It's an Illyrian invention. During the war back in the middle ages they used to dip  arrowheads in werewolf blood but firearms are even more efficient. Trust me, he's dead for good."

Mitchell had already heard about this kind of weapon but they were really hard to find. He looked down to see that the dead vampire had already turned into ashes. He understood that Andrew didn't have any other choice and that he had done it to protect them both, but still… "How… how do you.. ?? I mean, you just shot him, in the head, just like that, no hesitation."

"Hesitation is what makes stupid vampires killed," Andrew said, searching the pile of ashes with the tip of his shoe to see if the dead vampire had anything on him that could be useful.   "How do you think a Snow like me survived in the Illyria vampires' society for one century? "

Mitchell didn't reply, just looking at his companion with wide eyes.  

"I got them to fear me… and I never hesitated."  

"Do I have to fear you?" the younger vampire asked. He was starting to fully realize how fierce and redoubtable Andrew Johnson could be, but he also knew he couldn't be afraid of him. He was far too attracted to be scared.

"Maybe," Andrew replied, putting the gun on safe and back in the holster inside his jacket, "now let's get out of this town as soon as possible; in fact we better leave now. Do you have something important you want to take with you?"

"I don't have much here, mostly clothes, nothing I can't leave behind," Mitchell said, still taking care to shove his wallet, phone and passport in his jeans’ pocket, "you?"

"All my stuff is already in my car. I returned to my room and packed my things when I realized I had killed that poor girl. Talking about the car, we have to get it back. There are a lot of things in it I don't want to leave behind and it is the safer way for us to get to Dublin."

Mitchell nodded. He took a pile of euros from his wallet and put them on the bed to pay for the room. "The emergency exit is just next to room number 5, "he told Andrew who was scanning the corridor of the second floor through the half-opened door to be sure the way was clear.   "Good," the Kiwi whispered back before they left the room.

They were welcomed in the backyard of the guesthouse by wind and snow. They have left the SUV in front of the Jockeys pub, on the corner of Anne Street and Mary Street the night before. This pub existed since 1799, so both Mitchell and Anders remembered it from the time they were living in Dundalk; it was a good landmark. The pub was about ten minutes on foot away from Glen Gat Guesthouse. If they ran, they could be there in five.

"Just behind this wall, there is a passageway that leads to Crescent street, it could make us gain time," Mitchell informed the other vampire, pointing at one side of the concrete wall encircling the little yard.

"Perfect," Andrew approved.

Mitchell, with his natural feline grace, didn't have any trouble jumping to the other side of the wall. It took the blond more time and effort but he snorted and refused Mitchell's offer to help him.  

Once in the passageway, they didn't lose any time and ran toward Crescent Street. They were running for only about two minutes when Mitchell looked above his shoulder and realized they weren't alone, two dark shadows were following them from afar.

As soon as the passage crossed a street, Mitchell took this opportunity to grab Andrew by the jacket and drag him to the dark narrow corner of a porch.

"What the …?" the Kiwi began but Mitchell put a finger on his own lips and squeezed Andrew's smaller body to the brick wall with his own, trying to keep their forms as compact and hidden as possible.  

"Where the hell are they?" one voice asked with a thick Irish accent. "They can't have just vanished into the thin air," another voice replied.

The Kiwi hadn't moved from his position between Mitchell and the wall. He vamped out, his nostrils flaring and Mitchell could feel the other vampire's body tense and vibrating, displeased by the presence of their hostile congeners.

 "I'm sure they went this way," one of the vampires told his accomplice and their voices faded away as they receded on Vincent Avenue.

Mitchell didn't move immediately. He wanted to make sure that their pursuers were far away and to be really honest, having Andrew close, pressed against him, and feeling his fresh breath on his neck was quite pleasant.

After a few minutes, the blond started squirming. "Enjoying yourself much?" he asked Mitchell in a whisper, with a dubious irritation in his voice as he began to figure out the younger vampire was keeping him there on purpose.  

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mitchell lied shamelessly, looking down at the other vampire with an impish smile. Andrew had snowflakes in his golden hair and some in his eyebrows. Their lips were really close and the brunet would just have to bend down and tilt just slightly to kiss him. The idea of touching and kissing his mating partner under the snow, in the intimate shadows of a porch was tempting. He wanted to do it, but he didn't, the timing wasn't the best.  "Talking about enjoying yourself, what was that about, earlier in the room?" Andrew asked.

"What?"

"What you said to that guy, about you wanting a blond male whore from that brothel?"

"It was a lie; I wanted him to think I was interested by his proposition," Mitchell explained with sincerity.

"I don't believe you," the blond objected, frowning, "Admit it, you imagined me tied to a bed, at your mercy."

No, Mitchell hadn't really thought of it that way… but now that Andrew was talking about it, it seemed to be a rather enticing scenario. "Would you let me?" he teased, running a mischievous finger on the smaller vampire's rough jawline. He already knew what the response would be.

 "Try to tie me up and I cut off your balls," Andrew growled.

Mitchell couldn't help but smile, but he was deadly serious and he said "I would let you tie me up without hesitation."

He stepped back, giving Andrew his freedom but the vampire didn't move and was still staring at him, obviously confused and taken aback by Mitchell's avowal.

"Come on, we shouldn't stay here," the brunet urged his companion, before the Kiwi could say anything about what just happened and embarrass Mitchell. Much to his relief, Andrew didn't comment further as they left the passageway, walking prudently on Wynne's Terrace, alerted.

 The short street was leading directly to Anne's Street where Andrew had parked the SUV. They were only 100 meters away from their destination. The Kiwi took his five-seven out of its holster again and Mitchell prayed he wouldn't have to use it again. The odds seemed to be against them because when Andrew peeked at the street in front of the Jockeys' pub from their hiding spot, he cursed quietly. "There are three persons on the sidewalk opposite the pub. I can't be sure from here if they are vampires but I'm not sure I want to go and verify."

Andrew and Mitchell retreated to an alleyway on Wynne's Terrace and hid behind a waste container to figure out a plan.

"We are not subtle at all," Andrew pointed out, "We have to separate."

"I'm faster; if they are the ones who are after us, I'll try to mislead them. Get to the car and wait for me there. If after ten minutes I don't rejoin you, just go without me," Mitchell suggested. He didn't like that option but it was the only one he could come up with.  

"You're sure?"

Mitchell gulped; in fact the mere idea of Andrew leaving without him and never seeing him again was physically painful; the beast inside clearly didn't want to be separated from its mate.  "I don't see any other solution."

 "No, you're right," the smaller man conceded.

Mitchell pricked up his ears as he heard some angry voices not far from where they were. There were no doubts now, they were Dundalk's vampires, the ones who wanted Andrew dead. "I hear them. I'll attract their attention away from you so you can get to the car," he told the blond.  

"Mitchell ?"

"Yes?" Mitchell turned around to look at him but suddenly, there was a hand fisted in the curls on the back of his neck and firm lips pressing on his.

 "What was that for?" the brunet asked a bit startled as the Kiwi let go of him two seconds later.

"It was just in case…"  he said quietly, " _go dté tú slán._ [stay safe.],"

"Don't worry, _feicfidh mé ar ball sibh._ [I'll see you soon] _,"_ Mitchell replied, squeezing Andrew's shoulder lightly before leaving the alleyway without looking back.

Mitchell followed a brick wall like someone who is trying to hide, but his plan was quite the contrary in fact. He spotted three dark silhouettes through the falling snow.

"It's him ! The tall one. He's there!" One of the vampires shouted, pointing at him.

" _Yeah, that's it, fuckers. Now catch me if you can,"_ he thought, speeding in the opposite direction. He was confident. His long muscular legs never failed him before. He peeked above his shoulder to make sure the three vampires were after him. He was reassured to see that they were stupid enough to follow him.

He took several short turns, jumped walls and slalomed between parked cars.  After a few minutes, couldn’t hear footsteps behind him anymore so he stopped.

He was alone.

He stayed still a moment; on guard, but as there was no trace of his pursuers, he figured out he had succeeded in shaking them off. He had to get back to the car and Andrew now. He hoped he had given his companion enough time to reach his destination. He took another careful detour and jogged back to Anne's street.

He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that the black SUV was still there but his stomach dropped when he walked closer and realized that there was nobody inside and Andrew was nowhere to be seen.

Mitchell looked around, helpless. Andrew was supposed to be here by now. Something was wrong, something must have happened. Where was he?

"Fuck!" he cursed, kicking one of the SUV's tires before spinning around and scanning the snowy street again, like he had missed something that could give him a clue or just hoping Andrew would magically appear, safe and sound. "Shit," he murmured, running both his gloved hands in his dark mane.  

He rested his palms on the car's hood, closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm down.

He vamped out, using his increased sense of smell to sniff the air, trying to detect any trace of Andrew's characteristic scent. As hard as he tried he didn't smell anything. He let out a menacing growl just before his eyes went back to their human amber color. If those bastards had touched just one hair of his mating partner’s head, they would regret it. But what could he do now? Mitchell couldn't walk through every street of Dundalk yelling Andrew's name and tear apart any being that would stand in the way until he found him. His only comfort was to know that the blond had a gun and obviously knew how to use it.

He had to keep his blood cold and think, not surrender to the panic that was grinding his guts. He would search for Andrew and be restless until he had him in his arms again. He couldn't get rid of the horrible image in his mind of his lover lying in the snow, a stake poking out of his chest, his handsome face slowly turning into ashes.

 The snow had stopped falling. It was about 4 AM on a Sunday morning. The streets were empty. Vampires didn't have a reflection, they didn't leave fingerprints… but they still left footprints in the fresh snow, Mitchell mused.  If he returned where he had seen the Kiwi for the last time, maybe he could find a trail to follow.

He headed to the alley where they were hiding 10 minutes ago. He figured out that something was wrong when he noticed several footprints going in the same direction as him.

When he reached the alley way, the first thing he saw was Andrew, kneeling in the snow next to the container and looking at him; his face wan and his expression unreadable.

"Are you…" Mitchell began, forgetting the rest of the whole world in order to throw himself toward the Kiwi to check on him.

"Get out of here, idiot, it's a …" Andrew tried to warn him but it was too late and Mitchell froze when he felt the sharp end of a stake on the back of his neck. "…it's a trap," Andrew completed in a sigh, shaking his head.

One of the vampires, a tall female with curly red hair and a long green coat, stepped from behind the container, pointing Andrew's own gun at the PR's head. Apart from her, and the one who was holding the stake on Mitchell's neck, there was a third vampire, a skinny male, who seemed to be just a spectator, or at least, to be there to intervene if the prisoners tried to escape.

 "We had the little princess, now we got prince charming as well," she sneered, "the party can begin." She stepped closer to Andrew and pressed the end of the barrel to his temple, forcing him to tilt his head in an uncomfortable position. Mitchell tried to struggle but the vampire pushed him forward, still menacing him with the stake.

"Why did you get him? I am the one who stole a prey," Andrew protested.

"Maybe, but you both killed Arthur and he was my regular mating partner, so I thought it would be fun to kill your prince charming in front of your eyes," she cooed like a mad woman, playing with Andrew's short hair with her free hand.

"Well, you can do whatever you want, I only met him two days ago, he means nothing to me," Andrew stated.

Mitchell felt a burning hurt but didn't let anything show. 

"You're a liar," the red haired woman accused Andrew, pulling his hair and making the end of the gun run on the column of Andrew's throat.  "You're lying with that lame accent of yours… what is it by the way, Scottish?"

"New Zealand, ignorant bitch," the Kiwi croaked.  

"Illyrian wuss," she spat, letting go of his hair like he was infected, "It will be even more satisfying to kill you now that I know you're one of them." Andrew didn't correct her, it was pointless.

"The rule says 'one life to repay one stolen prey', nobody says it has to be him who dies," Mitchell pointed out calmly. He was determined to do anything he could to save the blond's life.

"Oh, how cute, your new fuck buddy you don't care about wants to sacrifice himself for you! You must be really good in bed," she told Andrew. "I can't tell for other cities but here in Dundalk, the rule is 'you fuck with us, you die', and you both fucked with us. But I think I'm going to accept the deal." She lifted up Andrew's chin with her fingers and she was satisfied to see fear in his eyes for the first time since she had caught him. "I guess it will be enough punishment for you to see your new sex toy turn to ashes in front of you."  She looked at the vampire who was behind Mitchell and ordered him to put the brunet on his knees.

"I hope after that you'll crawl back to the filthy hole you came from and never put your feet on this Island again," she told Andrew.

"Any last word?" the male vampire asked Mitchell.

"Don't let them hurt you," he simply told Andrew.  

"Mitchell…" Andrew breathed. There were so many things in that simple word: fear, incomprehension, disbelief, helplessness.

"Enough talking, just do it," the female vampire ordered. Mitchell's only chance to survive was that the other would miss his heart, but since the Irishman was on his knees and his executioner was standing up, he just had to plunge the stake from above Mitchell's shoulder, in his left pectoral just next to his sternum and he had to be very clumsy to miss his target. 

Mitchell felt a powerful blow but the only thing he noticed was Andrew's strangled cry and his eyes wide with terror before his own brain caught up and he looked down to see the stake in his chest, right through his heart. The pain hit him like a train, his knees gone weak and he fell on his side in the snow of the alley's ground. He tried to move, to stand up, his hands were clenching in the snow uselessly but he felt paralyzed. The pain was too intense to let him move.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

 

To say that Andrew was angry when he saw Mitchell being stabbed was an understatement; rage was nearly a tender sentiment in comparison to what he was feeling now. It was pure blind desire of vengeance mixed with desperation. He vamped out as soon as he saw Mitchell falling in the snow. He was going to tear their throats with his fangs, all of them, make them bleed and then stake them all and burn their ashes.  

He stood up slowly and turned toward the female vampire. "Kneel!" she ordered him, gesturing with the gun she had still pointing in his direction. He made his fangs descend at their longest and hissed, all his body tense and ready to jump to her throat. She stepped back; she was scared of him now. She wasn't the one in control anymore and the gun she was holding seemed useless now, it was like trying to beat back a tiger with a match. She had to make sure the blond vampire would turn into ashes before he could reach her. The advantage when you shoot with wolf-shaped bullets is that you don't have to aim for vital organs, wherever the bullet pierced the skin, the werewolf's blood would poison the vampire's organism in a few seconds.

She aimed and shot. Andrew barely felt the first bullet penetrating his right shoulder. His anger was stronger than pain. He could see that she was panicking now since the blond vampire hadn't fallen down and was still walking toward her with that black murderous glare.  She lowered the gun and shot him in the thigh, hoping it would stop him but it didn't work. Andrew was on her now and before she could react, he snatched the gun from her trembling hands.

"How?" was the red haired female's last word before he pulled the trigger. She turned into ashes even before touching the ground.

Andrew turned around. Mitchell was still lying in the snow. The two other Irish vampires were watching the whole scene with disbelief and fascination. "It's impossible," he heard one of the vampires say. They started to move backward. They knew this vampire who had received two deadly bullets without batting an eyelid was able to kill them too and the fact they were two against one would not change anything. But they weren't a real threat for Andrew and his attention was focused on Mitchell so he let them run away.

The Kiwi let his eyes and teeth get back to their human-like form as he kneeled in the snow next to Mitchell. He turned the Irishman gently on his back. The taller vampire was pallid; his brown eyes were open but glazed and unfocused. Mitchell coughed, bit of blood escaping his lips. "You have blood on you, you're wounded," he pointed out weakly, trying to reach for Andrew's blood soaked suit jacket.

"No, I'm fine, it's only that bitch's blood," Andrew lied, catching the brunet's hand mid-way and squeezing it soothingly. It was a blatant lie and now that the adrenaline (or whatever vampire equivalent hormone it was) had died down, the pain in his shoulder and thigh was overwhelming and every move was accompanied by deep suffering. But he wasn't thinking about his own injuries right now.

He uselessly brushed a few curls off Mitchell's face that was contorted with pain. The scene brought Andrew back eight years ago, on a street of Auckland when he had held in his arms a dying young woman. Funny how fate repeated itself in the most painful ways.   

"Why did you do that, you egg?" he cursed the taller vampire. He never asked him to die for him. He already had so many unpaid debts to his conscience.   

"To save your life, I guess," Mitchell replied with a bitter smile.  

"Why? You barely know me."

"Yeah, and it's a real shame," the Irishman said softly, trying to squeeze back the other's hand.  

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be, Anders, you did nothing wrong… "

"Don't call me that!"

"I know you prefer when I call you 'baby'," he teased, "and besides, I do love that name: Anders; it suits you, it's your human name," he replied, tasting the name on his tongue like a last treat.  

Mitchell's eyeballs rolled up in their sockets and he lost consciousness.

"Don't die on me. Come on, Mitchell, that's not fair," Anders pleaded in a weak voice, running a cold hand on the dark haired vampire's forehead.

They both had serious injuries that should have killed them right away. He had two wolf-shaped bullets in his body; it was a miracle that Mitchell and he weren't piles of ashes yet. Maybe Anders had been lucky and the glass of the capsules containing the poisoned blood hadn't exploded in his flesh yet. Though his mind was far away from those speculations or from thoughts of miracles; his only preoccupation was the heartbreaking spectacle that was the red color of his mating partner's blood staining the immaculate whiteness of the snow. Somewhere in his conscience, Andrew was still that independent predator, and his survival instinct was telling him to run away, leave this other male to his own tragic fate. He knew he should leave, but he wasn't able to abandon Mitchell. He had to do something but he had no idea what. Andrew always had a plan for everything and knew he could rely on his quick mind to find solutions and get out of trouble, but now it was a whole new game. He had to take care of somebody else. It was entirely new to him and he never felt that lost before. Of course he wasn't completely heartless. He cared for other people than himself, Dawn mainly. But Dawn was strong, indestructible, smart, so, most of the time, it was rather her taking care of him.

The vampire didn't have any time to ponder furthermore because suddenly, he was literally lifted from the ground and thrown to the bottom of the alleyway by an invisible and powerful force, several meters away from Mitchell's inanimate form. He cried when he landed on the concrete and his back hit the ground hard. The snow hadn't been enough to cushion the shock. He curled in a ball and moaned, tears of pain rolling down his cheeks. The wound of his shoulder was the worst; it felt like he was being stabbed again and again. His vision was blurred, all his senses, his entire world, everything, was only made of pain.  His sole obsession now was to make that throbbing ache disappear.

He brought the hand of his valid arm to his mouth and spat on his trembling fingers. Luckily, his production of venom had been stimulated by his coupling with Mitchell a few hours ago and his saliva had a dark color. He reached inside his jacket and under Mitchell's red t-shirt. He shuddered as he smeared the saliva on the circular wound. Another vampire's venom would be more efficient to ease the pain but for now, it was better than nothing. The temporary anesthetic effect of his own venom was soothing enough to help him gather back his spirits and enough strength to roll on his other side to check on Mitchell. The brunet was still lying where he was when Anders had been thrown away inexplicably.  But now, there was a curly haired young woman kneeling beside him. Anders' mind was still fuzzy from the pain and he wasn't able to understand what she was saying. It took him a few moments to realize she was crying and begging Mitchell to wake up.

The blond vampire managed to stand up, using the brick wall as support. He limped toward Mitchell and the woman. "Who the hell are you?" he groaned.

She lifted her head and glared at Anders with a dangerous silver glow in her eyes. She lifted a hand, showing him her palm. "Stay away from him," she hissed and Anders couldn't make another step forward, he was rooted on the spot, as if an invisible wall was blocking him. _She is a ghost_ , he realized, _and a powerful one._ She must be at least a poltergeist level four, maybe even five. They were rare, really rare. He had never met one before.

"Why did you do that to him," she was now crying. She lifted Mitchell's upper body from the ground and cradled his heavy head in the crook of her arm. She caressed Mitchell's pale cheek with the back of her hand. "Please, Mitchell, please; hold on."

Anders tried to struggle against the intangible ropes that were keeping him from moving but it was hopeless. "I didn't stake him," he protested, "they were three against us. Mitchell was trying to… to save me," he explained and the guilt smacked him in the face like a fist. It was his fault, all his fault if the taller vampire was dying. "I killed one of them," he added pointing at the pile of ashes to prove his point. "The two others ran away."

"If you aren't the one who staked him, who are you then?" the ghost asked him, still rocking a lifeless Mitchell in her arms.

"My name's Anders," he replied. For the first time in ages, he used his real name, Mitchell's lasts words still floating in his mind. "I'm his..," he continued but stopped mid-sentence. Who was he regarding Mitchell ? They weren't friends. _Coupling mate_ seemed to be an odd term to use to talk to someone who wasn't a vampire. Then was he his _fuck buddy_? It sounded too vulgar to describe what they had with Mitchell. His _lover_? Love wasn't supposed to be part of the equation. Since, it seemed to be the less rude term to use, so, it was the one he chose. And "lover" could refer to "physical love" only, which didn't implied troublesome sentiments and attachment.  

"I'm his lover."

"His lover," she repeated, giving him a quizzical look.

  "We met a few days ago, we slept together two times," he replied honestly. You better not lie when you are a prisoner of a vengeful ghost who can throw you wherever she wants like a tennis ball in the blink of an eye.

"Hm, I can believe that," she mused, "you are totally his type of bloke."

Suddenly, Anders felt his body relax and he could move again, freed from the invisible jail.

"Why isn't he turning to dust, this stake is clearly in his heart, not like the other time…," she pondered, running her fingertips along Mitchell's jawline.

"I don't know, I don't understand either," Anders replied," but what do you mean, 'like the other time'?"

"He got a stake in his chest before, but it missed his heart. I panicked and called an ambulance but it wasn't a good idea. The doctors got scared because they couldn't find a pulse. Mitchell made me promise never to do it again," she told him.

"But how did he heal from it ?" Anders asked, hoping that the answer could help them with the issue at hand.

"They tried transfusions and stuff but it didn't work. Finally, he drank blood and got better," she sighed.

Andrew hit his forehead with his palm. Blood. Of course. Why didn't he think about it sooner? He really had to think straight from now on.

"The sun is rising, there will be people in the streets soon," he said urgently, "stay here with him, I’ll get my car, we are going to put him in. We better not remove the stake from his chest or he will bleed even more"

She nodded. Andrew took back his gun from the ground and put it back in its blood stained holster.  He made his way, limping and hissing from the pain to the Jockeys pub and his car. Dundalk vampires seemed to want to leave them in peace for now. He brushed the snow off the SUV as fast as he could and he drove onto Wynne's Terrace, conversely on a one-way, but he couldn't care less.

Mitchell was heavier than he looked like but Anders was also stronger than he seemed and despite his injuries, he managed to carry the brunet to the back seat of the car. He didn't waste any more minutes and he drove out of Dundalk in the first pale lights of the morning with a ghost and an unconscious vampire on his backseat. As he drove, he was peeking above his shoulder now and then to see Mitchell's face getting paler and paler.

As soon as they were on a desert road in the countryside, Anders pulled the car to the side of the road, unbuckled his seat belt and turned around to look at his passengers, trying to ignore the pain flooding his own body. "I want to try something," she told the ghost.

She eyed him suspiciously.

"It might help him," the vampire insisted.

"Okay," she agreed.

Anders squeezed between the conductor and the passenger seats and slipped on the backseat. He took Mitchell in his arms and rested the brunet's head on his shoulder. "Okay mate, you're going to have to work in with me," he murmured to the younger vampire as the ghost was monitoring every one of Anders' gestures.

The Kiwi took two deep breaths. He really didn't want to do it, but he felt like he had no choice. He bit down his own wrist, eliciting more pain in a body that was already exhausted. The taste of his own blood made him nauseous. He massaged Mitchell's jaw gently with his other hand, "Open-up, honey," he encouraged him. Mitchell's lips parted slightly. "Yeah, good boy." Andrew pressed a thumb to his wrist, milking his blood in the brunet's mouth. A shiver ran through Mitchell's body and almost instantly, his face recovered some colors. The Kiwi gave him as much blood as he could, which wasn't much since he already had lost a lot of it himself. "I'm sorry, I can't give him more than that," he apologized to the young woman.

She nodded and took Mitchell in her arms again. Anders got back to the front seat and turned the key in the ignition and took the road to the South.

Now he had a plan. He knew where they would find Mitchell a safe source of blood.   

Mitchell opened his eyes and blinked a few times. "A… Annie ?" he whispered.

"Yes, that's me, darling," she reassured him, "I sensed you were in danger and I went all the way here to save your skin."

"Where is Anders?" he asked, his voice raspy and weak.  

"Don't worry, he's there. I was about to kick the ass of that lover of yours before I understood it wasn't him who staked you," she told him.  

"My lover…." Mitchell murmured with a soft smile before his face was deformed by a wince of pain.

Anders had heard those two words and they induced a warm confused feeling in his chest. He gulped, uneasy.  

"Where are we going?" Annie asked the older vampire.

"We are going to Dunleer."


	7. Antlers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitchell is badly injured, Anders wants to find blood to help him heal and pay his debt. After that, he'll be gone. He'll leave Mitchell in order to return to his own life and to Dawn. That's his plan. But things aren't that simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a new chapter ! This one is less action-packed than the last one but I hope you'll like it. 
> 
> Thanks again to the marvellous Katyushha for the betaing. You rock, gurl! <3

 

Mitchell was injured, severely injured and his body, as a reaction of self-defence against the unsustainable pain, had put itself in a sort of semi-comatose state. It felt like he was caught in his own head, in a dark and thick fog that was surrounding him and numbing his senses. He couldn't see anything, but sometimes there were voices echoing in the padded cell of his mind. There was a feminine voice; a familiar one –a voice that sounded like home: Annie's voice.

 There was also Anders' voice.

 _Anders._ He wanted to see him and touch him. _Touch_ _his arms through the stiff fabric of his jacket._ He wanted to kiss him. _Kiss his wet lips._ He couldn't see him and he couldn't touch him but suddenly, he could taste him. The taste of his lover's warm blood flooded his dry mouth, sweet and fruity, delicious and oddly full of life. He felt a new energy spreading in his nerves and muscles, enough to give him the strength to open his eyes.

He blinked a few times, blinded by the morning light. The first thing he saw was Annie. He was glad that she was there with him. He asked her about Anders. She reassured him that he was nearby and she also referred to him as his lover.  Mitchell liked that idea: the idea of Anders being his lover. He repeated that word that tasted almost as good as Anders' blood in his mouth. Soon, he drifted into a pained daze again. Though, this time, he wasn't lost in the smoke-like fog anymore but somewhere else. It wasn't a dream. It couldn't be. Vampires didn't have dreams. Sometimes they were having visions of their past murders, they were vivid memories rather than dreams and it was far worse than the most horrible nightmares a human could have.

This time though, Mitchell's brain had brought him into one of his old memories and it wasn't about someone he killed. He was reliving it like it had happened yesterday.

_He is in Novosibirsk, Russia, Siberia, on 14 December of the year 1923._

_Mitchell throws his homburg hat ragingly on a hook before knocking on the door of the rented flat with the side of his fist, making sure to make as much noise as possible._

_"Come in, John," a voice finally says. The tone is unimpressed as it comes from the other side of the closed door._

_Mitchell is frowning when he pushes the door. He finds his venom-father seated on an armchair next to the bed, readjusting the right sleeve of his shirt. A vinyl is turning slowly under the needle of the gramophone, filling the spacious room with the sound of Al Jolson's low voice singing 'April Showers'._

_"You knew it was me?" Mitchell asks, surprised but still upset._

_He notices that the lavender colored bed sheets are messy and at the edge of the bed, a naked foot showing from under the covers. There is a corpse in that bed. The horror of the sight is clashing with the lyrics of the song playing in the background, talking about daffodils and happy blue birds, but Mitchell is immune to the absurdity of it._

_"I figured out you were going to visit me very soon," Herrick smiles calmly.  He takes a cup from a table nearby and drinks from it, his eyes never leaving his venom-son. The liquor in the cup is beet red but too thick to be wine. The smell of human blood is everywhere in the apartment, making Mitchell's stomach groan with thirst. The body lying in the bed is probably the one of that lady Mitchell had seduced in order to introduce her to Herrick. The young vampire can't say he is surprised to see her there; he knew all along what would be her fate. Mitchell fought in the Great War and he’s been a vampire for eight years now, the sight of dead bodies doesn't make him flinch anymore. "You are a shark, be a shark", Herrick used to say and Mitchell had decided he would try to be a great shark. But no matter how hard he tries to please and make his venom-father proud, it doesn't seem to really work and Mitchell feels Herrick's last decision like a knife in his back. That is the reason why he is coming to see him today._

_"I am supposed to be your heir! Why did you choose Seth for this mission? Seth is a bloody idiot!" Mitchell growls._

_"I think we can agree on this," Herrick says softly. The demonstration of anger from Mitchell doesn't seem to trouble him at all._

_"Then what is that stupid secret about invincibility, then? He came to me bragging that you were going to tell him how to come back from the dead or some other shit like that?  If it's true, why tell him and not me?"_

_Now Herrick seems to be irritated, and if Mitchell didn't know better, he could swear he had seen a flash of fear in the older vampire's gaze. "NO!" Herrick protests firmly. "No John. You're not talking about invincibility here, you're talking about immortality."_

_"Aren't they the same thing?" Mitchell snaps. It isn't really the issue he wants to talk about. He doesn't care about semantics. He just wants to know why Herrick trusts that prick and not him._

_"They aren't. They really aren't," Herrick insists, making sure his "apprentice" is listening, "even we vampires are not immortal. We don't age, we don't get sick, time doesn't have any hold on us, that is true, I grant you, but we aren't immortals. In fact we are weak…even if we aren't really alive, we can still die. What if you get staked right in the heart, get poisoned by werewolf blood, are ripped apart by another supernatural or get burned? Then you turn into ashes and it's over. But what if you are able to come back?" Herrick asks, he has these nasty sparks of greed and lust in his rapacious blue eyes, and it has nothing to do with blood or sex. It is something else, something scarier, much more dangerous and mad. "What if you find a way to be born again from your ashes?" he continued." Then you are immortal. That is real immortality, son; that is real power."_

_"What about invincibility then? What is it? Is it possible?"  Mitchell suddenly wants to know._

_For a split second, Herrick's gaze darkens and he looks like he is going to jump at Mitchell's throat and kill him right away. The brunet takes a step back but Herrick_ _’s_ _expression softens one second later. He takes another sip from his cup. The scarlet liquid in it makes Mitchell's mouth water. He can smell the coppery and heady scent from where he's standing. "Why don't you get a drink while it's still fresh?" Herrick offers.  He fills another cup with the blood from the glass decanter and offers the cup to Mitchell._

_The younger vampire doesn't hesitate. He steps forward, takes it and brings it to his lips. The blood gets down his throat and feels like warm honey. He heaves a delighted sigh._

_"You're asking a lot of cheeky questions these days, son," Herrick remarks, resting back in the arm chair and scrutinizing his venom-child's face, "I think there is something eating you… apart from the secret I may or may not have told Seth, I mean. "_

_The blood has a kind of anodyne effect on Mitchell and now that he has drunk, he isn't really motivated to confront his venom-father anymore. "It's that whole travelling thing that gets on my nerves," he replies honestly," I just don't understand why we are moving from country to country like gypsies and you still don't want to tell me what we are searching for, after what we are running like that. Why don't you tell me if I'm supposed to be your right-hand man?" the brunet protests weakly. He can't be angry with Herrick for long. After all, his venom-father protected him, he is feeding him… it is thanks to him if Mitchell is still alive and kicking._

_Herrick is drinking from his own cup, looking at the corpse in the bed absentmindedly. Mitchell can't tell if he had really listened to what he said._

_"Hm… true…why waste your time running after the deer when you already have the perfect bait to lure it?" Herrick muses, murmuring for himself. "You just have to wait and it will come to you at the right time."_

_Mitchell follows his venom-father's gaze to the dead girl and suddenly, he isn't thirsty anymore. He puts the half-empty cup back on the table. "Oh, I know you like to use me as a bait to find humans to drink on," he replies, thinking that maybe Herrick's enigmatic statement is referring to the prey._

_Herrick turns his head and smiles at him, like he hadn't listened to Mitchell's comment once again. "That's what we will do, John. We are going back home; we are going back to Bristol. I'm patient, I can wait."_

 

 

_* * *_

 

Anders reached a hand to take his sunglasses out of the car's glove box. The sun was still hidden behind snow-filled clouds but the state of vulnerability he was, his eyes were even more sensitive to the daylight.

The road from Dundalk to Dunleer was made of an endless stream of white fields that used to be green, fences, stonewalls, leafless hedges and copses, white houses with their dark roofs and brick chimneys smoking lazily into the pale sky.

Anders was exhausted but the pain was keeping him awake enough to drive.

He was peeking into the rear view mirror now and then.  Mitchell seemed to slip from one state of consciousness to the other. Every time, he was waking up Annie was whispering sweet nothings to him, carding her fingers through his hair. They seemed to be quite close and he wondered, with a twinge of irritation he didn't quite understand, if there was something else than friendship between them.

The blond vampire had lived in several countries during his life. He had never really felt at home anywhere. But now, to see Annie being all affectionate and caring with Mitchell on his backseat was making him homesick. He realized that 'home' wasn't really Auckland, or his apartment, or even his office; home was where Dawn was, and now she was far away.

 Anders felt his heart tighten; he was missing his own little ghost an awful lot. She wasn't just his associate, his precious helper and his savior on a daily basis; she was much more than that.  Half of the people he met were afraid or intimidated by him, the other half wanted to have his attention, he liked it that way, that was his best protection… but Dawn wasn't in either of these categories. She definitely wasn't afraid or intimidated since she never had any problem confronting him. She had a kind soul but was always bluntly honest with him and she was way too smart to be fooled by his honeyed manners. People paid compliments to Anders during his life; clients, people trying to get into his pants, his venom-daughters trying to coax him, but he never felt touched by any of their words. A lot of people had also insulted him but their harsh words weren't affecting him; it was almost like he didn't hear them and sometimes it was even making him laugh. Though, when Dawn was telling him that he had acted like a jerk, he was listening and trying to make up for whatever he had fucked up with, because he knew she wouldn't say that lightly, to have power on him or to humiliate him but because he truly deserved it. It was the same thing for compliments. When Dawn took the time to point out that he looked handsome in a new shirt or when she was telling him he had had a genius idea for a publicity campaign, these compliments mattered to Anders because Dawn didn't want anything from him, she was just sincere. Mitchell had also told him compliments… and those were confusing him a lot. First he had thought the brunet's strange tenderness was due to a kind of abstinent vampire guilt; but now he wasn't so sure of that.

Still, when he was thinking about Dawn, he was still wondering why such a kind spirit had chosen a monster like him to protect. He had figured out Dawn was his guardian on a Christmas night a few years ago. He had taken her in his arms and had felt the strength of their bond like a slap in the face. He had been overwhelmed by a sensation that couldn't be described with mere human words; something both unbreakable and pure; probably the only pure thing he had in his depraved life.  It was like being woken up, seeing the light for the first time and realizing that all your life up to now, you were just navigating blindly on a glassy sea, prisoner of the gluey tentacles of an uneasy slumber. He had felt so undeserving of such a gift. He had never been able to tell her she was his guardian ghost. He didn't want her to feel like it was a duty for her to watch after him. He was the only responsible when he got himself in trouble. But now, he was the one who couldn't help but worry for her. What if he ended up dying from his injuries after being slowly poisoned with the werewolf blood?  What would happen to her if she 'failed' her mission as a guardian? He supressed a shiver, thinking about the men with sticks and ropes, the worse nightmare of every supernatural and the ones who was supposed to drag them in hell. He had to stay alive for his Dawnsie, and also to save Mitchell whom he already was indebted to.  

 "Are you his guardian ghost?" he dared to ask Annie, curious. It was the first sentence that was spoken between them since he had fed Mitchell a bit of his blood on the side of the road outside Dundalk.

"Me?" she asked with an annoyed tone, even if Anders couldn't be talking to anyone else. It was obvious that she didn't trust nor liked him. And he couldn't blame her for that, not in the state Mitchell was because of him.

He nodded.

"No. I'm not a guardian; I'm a haunter," she explained and as she saw his puzzled look, she rolled her eyes and sighed. "I don't protect a person in particular; I protect a place, a house. Mitchell lives in my house. I'm bounded to protect him as long as he considers the house his home…. and he is also my best friend."

There was another long silence.

"Why did he do that? Why did he save my life?" Anders asked. He wasn't able to understand the other vampire's motivation and thought that maybe Annie could tell him.

"He has an empathic soul for a vampire…," she explained in a long sigh, "and even more than most humans. It's just the way he is. I guess he has a kind of crush on you too. Though, I don't understand why. It's not like you're especially cute," she snorted.

Anders smirked a little. Her jealousy was showing.

 "I warn you," she added in a growl, "when he falls, Mitchell falls hard. If you break his heart I will break you in half."

"Can I just remind you that for now, it's a stake that he has in his heart… and it's far more concerning than what I could metaphorically do to it," Anders replied casually though his mind was racing and there was this uncomfortable feeling settling in the bottom of his stomach.    

If Mitchell was getting attached to him, that was bad news. If they both got out of that mess alive, if he succeeded in saving Mitchell's life, he would have repaid his debt toward him and he would have to make things clear with the younger vampire. He would have to tell him one more time that falling for him was the worst idea ever. After that, their ways would have to separate. They shouldn't have even mated in the first place, considering where it had led them. And 'love' or a 'relationship', these were things Andrew didn't even want to consider.  Anyway he had to leave for London soon, find a new office and after that, we would have to find a way to get his favorite ghost back.

 

* * *

 

As soon as they entered Dunleer's town, Anders stopped in front of the first convenience store he could find.  He went to the boot of the car and fetched clean pants, a pale blue shirt, a suit jacket, a red tie and a first aid kit. Ignoring Annie's presence, he took place back on the driver seat and took off his pierced and blood stained jacket and Mitchell's red t-shirt. He applied a bit of saliva on the wound on his shoulder and his jaw relaxed a bit from the temporary relief. With his free hand and his teeth, he managed to wrap a bandage tight around his injured shoulder. Still doing like Annie didn't exist; he took off his trousers and did the same with his thigh. Every minute wasted was a minute more that Mitchell was suffering; there was no time for false modesty anymore. Fortunately she had the decency not to make any comments; she was focused on Mitchell anyway. The ghost and the blond vampire were tolerating each other as long as they were working for Mitchell's greater good.

When he was dressed, Anders went to the store and came back a few minutes later with three chocolate bars and a pack of orange juice.

Annie cocked an impatient brow when he got back in the car. "So, that is your genius plan? He has a stake in his heart and you are going to give him orange juice?"

"That's not for him, that's for me," the Kiwi stated, impassible. He didn't want to waste his time reacting to her passive-aggressive comments.  "And no, that's not my plan, but I want to give him a little more of my blood and I need to regain a bit of energy to do so. I have to stay awake if I also want to be able to hunt too…. at least if you don't want to be stuck with two unconscious vampires. "

Annie lowered her gaze sheepishly. "Yeah… I'm sorry…. It just… to see him like that, it gets me on edge," she apologized grazing her fingertips on Mitchell's pale cheek.  

Anders didn't reply. He ate one chocolate bar and drank half the pack of orange juice. The sugar didn't have the same effect as on human organism, but still, the blond vampire felt a bit better despite the constant pain burning his shoulder and thigh.

Anders knew that little doses of his blood wouldn't be enough for Mitchell to recover, he needed a good amount of human hemoglobin… but finding a clandestine vampire brothel in a town wasn't an easy task. The tourist maps wouldn't be of any help to indicate him the directions to get there. Find a funeral parlor was the best way to get to talk to a vampire who could give him the information he was seeking. He had taken the opportunity of his detour to the store to ask the cashier where the nearest funeral parlor was. As cliché as it could seem; cemeteries, funeral parlors, places like that were like the churches of the vampire world and a good way to find one is to wander around those places.

Annie was obviously determined not to question the blond vampire's plan anymore because she didn't say anything when he pulled the SUV in an empty parking on Dunleer's main street. Her face was blank and expressionless when Anders asked her to exchanged places in the car. On cue, she just disappeared from the back seat to reappear on the passenger's one, giving room to him to get next to Mitchell.

"Hey you," Mitchell said, his voice barely a whisper from his dry lips as the Kiwi pulled him gently onto his lap. 

"Hey," Anders whispered back, cradling Mitchell's neck to help him keep his head up. Anders noticed that the brunet's skin was burning hot and sweaty. Anders didn't know it was even possible for a vampire to have fever… but it was also impossible for a vampire to survive a stake in the heart and yet he had… so the blond decided not to try to rationalize the situation any further. He took off his jacket and put it under Mitchell's head that was pillowed on his thigh. Anders rolled his right sleeve up on his forearm. "Be a good lad and open up so daddy can give you your medicine," he told Mitchell.  

"Hm a daddy kink ? Interesting," Mitchell commented.

"Shut up."

"I thought you wanted me to open up," the brunet tried to joke but his small smile turned into a grimace of pain and he shivered.   

"Even with a stake in your chest you can still be a sassy little shit," Anders remarked, "I think you're doing far better than you're pretending. After all, I shouldn't waste my precious blood on you."

"Sorry Anders. I'm sorry," Mitchell implored, "Please, give me some."

The Kiwi sighed. He presented his forearm to Mitchell’s mouth and waited. The brunet drew out tiny fangs and his eyes were only veiled with a dim gray color, he was too exhausted to vamp out properly. He still managed to bite down the flesh and he heaved a relieved sigh when he felt the warm blood on his tongue.  

"You taste gorgeously delicious, as always," Mitchell muttered when he was done drinking. He was feeling slightly better and sleepy.  "What was it, chocolate and oranges?"

Anders' eyes widened. "How do you…?" he began.

"I'm kidding," Mitchell cut him, "I was awake when you came back from the store." He licked the remaining drops of blood on his lips. "You should take a bit of my blood," he told the blond vampire.

"You're kidding, right?" he scoffed.

"Anders, I know you lied to me in the alleyway, you're injured, you need blood too."

"As tempting as it is, that's not an option for now," the blond objected, "maybe when you're healed."

"When I’m healed … we have a sweet coupling and I let you drink my blood, yeah?" Mitchell asked, not even trying to hide the hope in his voice.  

The Kiwi felt guilt wrecking him in the guts. How could he tell him he was planning on leaving as soon as the younger vampire was feeling better?

"I'm still here, you know?" Annie snorted with a disgusted tone. 

"If you want, when you're in better shape, I'll pay us a really nice room in a chic hotel in Dublin," Anders suggested to the brunet in a whisper so Annie couldn't hear.  

Mitchell smiled. "Hm… I like the sound of that," he emitted, closing his eyes and resting the side of his face on the blond's belly.  

Anders hoped that, if everything went as planned and they both got out alive from that adventure, he could offer Mitchell that one last night together. Maybe, this way, Anders would feel less guilty to drop him afterward. "I'm just going to check on you injury," he told Mitchell calmly. The brunet nodded.

Anders opened Mitchell's leather jacket and tore up the fabric of the horrid yellow shirt around the wooden stake that was still in his chest. He let out a displeased noise and he felt slightly nauseous when he caught a glimpse of the wound. The flesh around the stake was bloody, swollen and a nasty purple-black on some spots.  Some ribs were clearly fractured. He was glad his SUV had tinted windows and nobody could see what was going on inside.

"Ugly, isn't it?" Mitchell grieved with a pained raspy voice, even if he couldn't really see it.

 "Horrible," Anders confirmed.

"You can't kiss it better I guess," the brunet joked, trying to put a smile on Anders' disgusted and anxious face.

"The only thing I can do is to find you some blood, this way you'll regain enough strength so we can take this stake out as soon as possible," he analyzed, unamused despite Mitchell's attempt.  

"But my mouth hurts too," Mitchell insisted.

"What do you mean?" Anders frowned.

"It hurts and you can kiss it better."

 The Kiwi rolled his eyes. "Try to sleep now," he shushed him, taking a few gauze pads from the first aid kit. When he was done cleaning the wound the best he could, Mitchell was already asleep and he left him to Annie's good care.

Anders grabbed a few things from the back of the car, got prepared for his mission and crossed the street in the direction of the funeral parlor. The entrance of Connors funeral home was a discreet green wooden door just next to another establishment called Connor's lounge -- wine and spirits. "Bloody Irish," Anders whispered as he lightened the cigarette he had borrowed from Mitchell, figuring out that the sleeping vampire wouldn't mind. The Kiwi wasn't a smoker but he hoped that filling his lungs with nicotine would help him distract his mind and forget the ache in his body. He rested his back on the cold stone wall and watched the puffs of smoke disperse in the cold air. It was still quite early in the morning and the street was quiet. He figured out that if he stayed for a while in front of the funeral home's door and look like someone who's waiting for something, he would attract the attention at some point. He took this opportunity to check his phone that he had turned off the night before, when he went to the Imperial hotel's bar. It seemed it was an age ago. He had six missed calls from Dawn. He swore to himself he would call her back when he felt better -- when things would have settled down. He didn't want to make her worried more than necessary and he didn't want to call and have to lie to her either, pretending everything was fine. He put the phone back in his pocket.  All he could do now was wait and hope.

 

 * * *

 

 

"Vampires don't have dreams." Mitchell was repeating those words to himself. But his eyes were closed; he couldn't hear Annie's voice anymore. Anders' blood had filled him with reassuring warmth that had calmed the pain and had put him into sleep in no time. He didn't really remember what dreaming felt like, but right now, he saw images in his mind that weren't from any of his numerous memories, and they didn't seem to have any sense.

 

_He was in the woods, that's what he thought at first…but this couldn't be woods since there weren't any trees. It was more like an immense white room, so wide he couldn't see the walls. And everywhere around him, there were folding screens made of black silk, dispersed in the room at random like the trunks of fir trees in a snowy forest. There was a soft breeze that was inflating the silk screens like sails. This room didn't seem to have an exit and as Mitchell walked in that stranger world he realized it was probably infinite. He heard a sound; hooves on the hard white floor and as he turned around he saw the stag. It was a majestic animal: with large antlers that shone like gold. It had a thick pale fur and melancholic eyes. Mitchell thought of Cernunnos, the antlered god of virility from the Celtic pantheon. For a moment he was speechless and awestruck by the beautiful apparition. Suddenly, every vein, every nerve, every fiber of Mitchell's body came alive, he was like a young man taking part in the Great Hunt on Beltane night, this beast was his and he had to capture it._

 

_Mitchell took a step toward the stag but the gracious animal stepped back and in an elegant leap, it disappeared behind one of the folding screens. Mitchell hurried in its direction but when he looked on the other side of the black silk, the deer had vanished. When Mitchell turned around, he saw the animal from afar. "Wait ! I won't hurt you!" the Irishman shouted, but it escaped away from him again. The vampire ran after the fantastic beast but every time he thought he was on the verge of reaching it, it disappeared from his sight. The pursuit seemed to go on and on for an eternity -- the sole huntsman chasing the pale hart but never really succeeding in approaching it. When Mitchell finally decided he would give up, out of breath, the stag appeared from behind the dark fabric of one of the folding screens and walked leisurely toward its tracker. It stopped just in front of Mitchell and stared at him with his forlorn and disabused look framed by blond lashes. The vampire could swear he had seen this gaze before. Mitchell reached a gentle and careful hand to pet the animal's head but it wasn't the fur his hand met but soft golden hair and it wasn't a stag in front of him anymore but Anders. Somehow, it made sense in Mitchell's mind since "Anders" and "antlers" were words that sounded strangely similar._

_"Baby…" Mitchell whispered affectionately, caressing the older vampire's cheek, "I thought I would never find you."  He pulled Anders in his arms and kissed him. The blond seemed to respond to the kiss, parting his lips slightly to grant entrance to Mitchell's tongue. When Mitchell broke the kiss, Anders still hadn't said anything, which was making Mitchell worry. "Say something," he urged him gently._

_Anders’ face was deadly serious. "The wine from the family's crockery tastes better," he said._

And Mitchell woke up, this strange sentence echoing in his mind.

He lifted his gaze to look at Annie from below, troubled. "I just had a dream…" he told her.

She looked back; unsure if she had heard well. "You had a what?"

 

* * *

 

After an hour and a half of waiting, Anders finally saw a dark green Jeep arrive and park just before him.

The creature that came out of the jeep was a she. She was tall, taller than him and Anders was glad to see she didn't have a threatening attitude. The woman was wearing torn jeans tucked in combat boots. The side of her head was shaven and the remaining hair dyed in blond and pink. Anders detailed her as she was walking toward him and he decided she had nice curves. She was a vampire, no doubt. She had long lashes and an invitating smile that widened even more when the two vampires caught each other's scent. She didn't smell like a human, but instead of the usual neutral scent most of the vampires had, she had the subtly musky scent of a potential coupling mate. Anders had always wondered if this scent they detected only on specific vampires was a way to help the vampires spot the other congeners with whom they would make a good hunting team. It had been the case for him and Michele. For Anders, Michele had the same smell as this female and they made a terrific hunting team. He hadn't tried to hunt with Mitchell but if his theory based on the attractiveness of the scent was right, they would make the most efficient team this world had ever seen.

But Anders had a mission; he couldn't let himself be distracted by the first female that would cross his path like a dog in heat.

He couldn't help but notice that her pupils were blown wide when she reached a hand and introduced herself as "Kate."

"I'm Andy," he said back, shaking her hand and trying to find back the Irish accent he had forced himself to lose long ago and let it roll on the roof of his mouth. The New-Zealand accent was coming naturally now, but he had to fight it, being categorized as an Illyrian vampire here was pretty dangerous.  He couldn't afford to fail, not now.

"What is an eye-candy like you doing here in Dunleer?" Kate asked, running a hand in her hair and gazing at him in clear invitation.

Anders decided not to take any detour: "I'm only here for a few days and I hadn't fed for a while now. A contact in Dublin told me there was an establishment in this town where I could find a bit of distraction for a good price," he told her casually.  

She was biting her lower lip and was now undressing him with the stare of her green eyes only. "You need distraction, gorgeous? Why pay for something you can have for free?" she purred.  

"No offense, but I mostly need to feed.  I'm not interested," he stated calmly. Resisting to her was actually easier than he thought. Anyway, her scent was faint and easily forgettable in comparison to Mitchell's. This thought only was enough to disturb him. For a second he considered the option of actually accepting to mate with her, just to prove to himself that Mitchell wasn't as addictive as he was. He brushed off this idea immediately. As soon as Mitchell was healed, he would be able to fly away and get rid of this scary curse the brunet had obviously cast on him.

He scrutinized Kate's face, hiding his anxious anticipation. It was like rolling a dice. He had taken a chance by rejecting her advances --not many vampires accepted "no" as an answer. If he got her angry, he had maybe lost his only chance to find the brothel.

She seemed more suspicious than angry for now. "Your scent is betraying you, dear," she objected.

"Listen, Kate," he said quietly," you're attractive and all, but I have to say no, I'm sorry."

"Your loss," she shrugged, "I'm sure we would have had much fun together."

"I don't doubt it."

"The brothel you are searching for is called the Velvet Curtain, it's a few kilometers out of the town" she informed him. "But that person you know in Dublin lied to you; you won't find anything at a good price there. It's a high class club. And I hope your contact called there to announce you because if you think you can enter there like in a pub you'll be disappointed. Otherwise, you're going to need a great power of persuasion and a lot of money."

Anders smirked. "Money isn't an issue. Can you show me where it is?"  

She crossed her arms. "What do I get for bringing you there?"  

The Kiwi wasn't surprised by her request. No vampire would have helped him for his pretty eyes. He was prepared in consequence. "I give you 200 £ now," he told her, throwing a pile of cash in her direction, "you'll have 200 more once I'm sure you brought me to the right place."

She caught the pile and after a quick count, she grinned. "Deal," she beamed," follow me."

She climbed in her Jeep and Anders jogged back to the SUV. After verifying that all his passengers were still on board, he hurried to turn the key in the ignition and to leave the parking, following Kate's Jeep. They left the main street to follow a road that was leading out of town to a kind of rich suburb. She took a private entrance that was leaving civilisation to cross a forest of tall old trees. The jeep stopped in front of a tall wrought iron gate. If there was a house or any other building there, it was hidden by the trees and couldn't be seen from the gate. There were two white rectangular security cameras that shifted in the direction of the cars as soon as they arrived. The owners of the propriety or whoever was watching already knew there were people at their gate.

"Don't move from here, don't make any noise," Anders told his passengers as he parked the car, though Mitchell seemed to have drifted back into Morpheus' arms already.

"Mitchell can't go anywhere, obviously," Annie retorted. "But I'll have to leave eventually.  I can't stay away from the house for long or my poltergeist energy will decrease. In a few hours I'll have to go back to Bristol, but I'll stay with him as long as I can. "

The word "Bristol" made Anders flinch and the sound of that name and the neuralgic reflex of fear that came with it made his stomach drop. He felt a cold old fright creep to his chest.  Bristol: William Herrick's little kingdom. Anders' venom-father was dead, sure, but his followers: Seth, Big Bad John and the others: whose names he didn’t know, they were still alive and maybe they were searching for him too, maybe they had taken this hunt after Herrick's passing. Bristol was the capital of the Snow line, the city was full of vampires and they were maybe all as mad as Herrick was. He wouldn't go to Bristol to verify if he was right, he would never approach this doomed city, never over his dead body.  He didn't even want to know why Herrick had been so obsessed about him. But Mitchell…. he lived in Bristol. Anders wondered why he didn't know that information yet, and then, he remembered that most of the time he had spent in Mitchell’s company had been filled with hot coupling, body hiding and running for their lives… it wasn't really an appropriate situation for casual personal stories sharing. Anders always made a point of being particularly careful with sharing information about himself, it had taken eight years before he told Dawn his real name and she was probably the most trustworthy person one could ever meet. And still, after only three days, Mitchell already knew his birth name, he knew about his past as a soldier and he knew about the difficult relationship he had had with his family, something even Dawn didn't know about. There was something stronger than him that made him want to talk the other vampire and open up to him. But something struck him: the fact that he didn't know anything about Mitchell. Anders had a hard time believing that this cute brunet male with doe-eyes who was begging for kisses and cuddles like a fourteen-years-old with a crush could be one of the soulless killing machines of Herrick's personal army. But maybe Mitchell had known Big Bad John, and maybe he had even known Herrick himself. It was maybe time for Anders to stop answering Mitchell's questions and start asking some.

"I'll try my best to stay until you come back so I know he isn't alone," Annie said, dragging Anders out of his thoughts, "I don't really trust you, but I have no other choice…. and Mitchell seems to like you, for some mysterious reasons."

"If only I knew myself," Anders sighed.   "Just try not to be seen by anybody," he told Annie. He cast a last look at the sickly but somehow peaceful face of the other vampire who was sleeping on the backseat. He tried to ignore the absurd lump in his throat as he got out of the car, carrying a suitcase with a precious content.

"Where is my cash?" Kate asked impatiently when Anders rejoined her next to her Jeep. She wasn't flirty anymore, more annoyed and impatient than anything else.    

"You'll have to wait until I come back, darling," he told her with a mocking wink, "how can I be sure you brought me to the right place if I don't enter?"

"You mean that I'm stuck here while you're enjoying yourself inside," she snarled.

"You can leave if you want, but you won't get your 200£."

"Fucker," she hissed between her teeth.

Anders laughed. Insults were passing on him like water on a duck's back.   "You can always accompany me," he suggested with a smirk.

"I don't go in there…this bitch is crazy…." the female vampire muttered but Anders wasn't really listening, he was already walking toward the gate. He was trying his best to control his leg's move and not to limp: an injured vampire was a vulnerable vampire and the last thing he wanted was to appear weak.

"Oh, one last thing, " he asked, turning around, "what is the landlady's name?"

"Felicity Gallagher," she grunted.  

"Thanks milady" he replied and he took a quick bow before heading to the wrought iron door.

There was an intercom box just before the door.  When Anders pressed the red button, there was a sizzle coming from the box. "Who are you and what do you want?" barked a male voice out of it.  

"I prefer to introduce myself to a real person, not a machine if you don't mind, "Anders said, "and I guess the fact you can't see me on your cameras gives you at least a clue about what I am. And about the matter of what I want: pleasure and blood, obviously," he said with a honeyed yet dictating tone.  

"You don't have a membership ID I presume," the hard voice asked but it took more than that to impress and discourage Andrew Johnson.   

"I could lie and say I lost it, but it would be a lie," he smirked, "I never had one."

"You better get back from where you came, then," was the answer.

He sighed, "Oh, I forgot, I think I have a membership ID after all." He took a thick impressive pile of cash from the inside of his coat and showed it to the camera. He was glad that Dawn had advised him to open a bank account in Ireland and to take a substantial amount of cash out of it as soon as he would be in Dublin. He had been reluctant at first. He already owned several bank accounts in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, so one in Ireland wouldn't hurt… it was the prospect of carrying that much cash with him that made him nervous. It could turn him into a potential target, but Dawn was right after all, he would need it. Bless her and her intuition.

There was a humorless chuckle in the interphone, "you think you are the only one trying to be admitted that way, playing the rich playboy and trying to brag with your money?"

"Right," the blond stated, deadpan, putting the bundle of cash back in his suit, "I guess I just have to find a more welcoming establishment to spend it."

He had an inner satisfied smile as he heard some ruffling through the interphone and some whispering. The inner smile turned into a carnal grin when he heard a loud buzz and the heavy door unlocked.  He hadn't won the war yet but at least the first battle: they had let the wolf enter the sheepfold.  He had now to make sure not to be turned into a sheep himself.


	8. The Velvet Curtain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls of the Velvet Curtain were like the mermaids in that ocean of lechery, their curves and lascivious gazes were their chant and Anders was one of those poor sailors who had to resist it for fear of being drowned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love and infinite hugs to my beta, my awesome friend Katyushha. 
> 
> Warnings: - violence, prostitution, mention of drug abuse, minor character's death

 

It was starting to snow again, like this snowstorm didn't want to end. A snowflake fell on the one of Anders' hands that was carrying the suitcase. The vampire stopped to watch the white dot on the back of his hand turn into a water droplet. He frowned. His skin wasn't supposed to make snow melt since a vampire' body wasn't producing its own warmth. He was already outside for a while so in theory, his skin should have been the same temperature as the ambient air. This was odd. He shook his head. He was probably imagining things or it was the poisoning effect of the werewolf blood that made him hallucinate, or it was the injuries that had this effect:  just like Mitchell's fever.

His body had been doing really weird shit lately. Everything had started when he had coupled with Mitchell for the first time. This was just giving Anders another reason to put as many miles as possible between him and the brunet at the first opportunity he would get.

 Anders' body reacted instantly and violently to the mere thought of this imminent separation. He had to throw himself out of the road, drop his suitcase and grab a tree trunk not to collapse as he threw up in the snow.

He coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his leather glove. He clenched his teeth as a shot of pain from his shoulder crossed his chest like a third bullet. The vampire rested his forehead on the rough bark of the ash tree, closed his eyes and took a deep breath to gather back his wits. He had to keep his head cold and not surrender to his instincts nor let his confused attachment for the other vampire rule over him.

When he felt better, the Kiwi opened his eyes to take in his surroundings. He had walked for at least ten minutes and still no building or house to be seen: only the forest and the snow. Dark clouds had gathered in the sky, obscuring the landscape. Anders resumed his walk. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his leather shoes in the crispy fresh snow. In that gloomy atmosphere, the trees looked like cadaverous old ladies, leaning across the path and pointing their lean fingers at him, judging the sinner he was for going to an establishment where blood and sex were sold to the highest bidder. "It's not even for me!" Anders said out loud.

 _Wow. Now I am talking to trees…_ he told himself, questioning his own sanity. He accelerated and as the path took a turn to the right, that's when he finally saw the house.

"House" wasn't exactly a good term to describe it. It was a colossal red brick Victorian manor with two floors and probably a few rooms in its attic. It was large enough to require four sets of triple chimneys. The façade had a dozen wide windows veiled with thick curtains and it was impossible to see if there were people or light inside. With its decoration in wrought iron on the roof and its walls covered with leafless ivy, it looked much like the haunted mansions in vampire movies and the cliché made Anders chuckle quietly. He noticed two limousines, a black one and a white one, a BMW and a few less expensive cars parked in front of the house. Apparently he wasn't the only client today.

The blond vampire walked past the frozen marble water fountain adorning the center of the circular parking. The statue of the fountain represented a Greek divinity, an old man holding an hourglass. Anders recognized the titan Cronos, the god of time and old age. It wasn't difficult to understand the signification of this symbol. Time and age: two things vampires had defeated. Cronos was also known as the god who devoured his kids.  " _…like a bloody beast_ ," Anders commented silently as he headed up to the door.

There was a system to insert a membership card that would probably unlock the door right away but Anders didn't have one. He had to find another way to enter. The knockers on the wooden door were also hourglass-shaped but the PR decided to use the interphone next to the door instead. He pressed the button and waited.

"Yes?" a gruff low voice asked.

Anders peeked above his head and he saw the security camera shift in his direction, verifying he wasn't human. "I would like to get in if you don't mind," the blond asked.

There was no answer.

"We talked fifteen minutes ago. You cannot have forgotten about me already. I would be offended. I thought we had a special connection, you and I," the Kiwi smirked, leaning toward the box, whispering seductively in it.

There was a click and the door unlocked.

He got in and closed the door behind him.

He was alone in the hall, at the foot of a large staircase. Apart from the electric chandeliers hung to the high ceiling, the interior decoration seemed like it hadn't been modified since the last decades of the nineteenth century.

The _Velvet Curtain_ was aptly named. They were everywhere: heavy red velvet curtains. The flowery wallpaper itself seemed to be made out of a red velvety material. The decor was completed with warm colored woodwork and paneling around the doors and on the ceiling.

"Impressive, isn't it?" said a child voice from the top of the stairs.

Anders lifted his gaze and at the top of the staircase, there was a teenage boy observing him. He was wearing a black suit, a white buttoned-up shirt and a bow tie. A long yellow filmy skirt was covering his legs. His black hair was slicked back on his head.

"Interesting decoration, indeed. No offense, but I have to confess I prefer a more modern one," Anders stated, scrutinizing the strange apparition who was going down the stairs, followed by a big, tough, scary looking and tattooed vampire woman.

Anders had a weird vibe about the young-looking vampire. After long seconds of confusion, the blond vampire realized that it wasn't a boy but a girl. As far as he could judge, she must have been turned at fourteen, maybe fifteen years old. Child vampires always made Anders uncomfortable but this one particularly. A creature that looked like a child but had lost all the innocence that came with it was creepy, even for a vampire like Anders.  

She wasn't pretty, but not exactly ugly either. She had big grey eyes with a thick line of black kohl accentuating their size. She had protruding cheekbones, almost too prominent to look nice. Her long pointy nose was like the beak of a crow ready to puncture your eyes. She had obviously suffered from a grave disease during her human life because she had ugly scars in her neck that looked like smallpox ones, but bigger. Anders gulped when it struck him. These were black plague bubonic scars. He had a really old vampire in front of him. She was probably one of the oldest vampires he had ever met.  

He got over his repulsion enough to take her hand and kiss the back of it without actually pressing his lips on her skin, like the true gentleman he was. "Miss Gallagher, I presume," he murmured in a honeyed voice, "I'm honored."

"I always make a point of greeting my new clients in person," she said when Anders let go of her hand. The Kiwi noticed that she was holding a black cane and that its silver pommel had the shape of a sandglass. He understood now why this symbol was everywhere. For such an ancient being, it was fitting. "My security guard informed me that you insisted on entering without being invited." She smiled but it didn't reach her iron gray eyes.

"I heard such great things about this establishment in Dublin, and since I am in Dunleer for a few days, I thought it would be a shame if I didn't pay a visit," Anders lied with his best Irish accent, taking off his gloves and shoving them in his suit pocket.

"I'm glad to learn that the _Velvet Curtain_ has such a good reputation in the capital," Felicity Gallagher said, scanning Anders from head to toes, "I hope you have an enjoyable stay in County Louth, Mister… sorry, I'm afraid I don't know your name, sir."

"Anderson," Anders said, "John Anderson." This subtle inversion of his name was one of the numerous aliases he had used during his life.

"What can we do for you, Mr. Anderson? I'm sure you aren't here for our choice of vampire coupling companions," she said, as she was pointing out the obvious.

It made the blond stiffen. How did she know he wasn't there for that? "What would make you think that, madam?" he asked her.

"The bite on your neck, darling," she answered, using the tip of her cane to push Anders' shirt's collar aside, exposing the reddish mark Mitchell had put on his jugular the night before. Since Anders had been weakened by the bullet injuries, the bite was probably healing slower than usual. Normally, it would be almost invisible by now. He looked like a vampire who had coupled only two or three hours ago, in other words, a vampire who would not give himself all that trouble to look for another mate so soon. He understood it would be a mistake to underestimate Felicity Gallagher and that he had to be careful on every word that would cross his lips.

"Well, you are right, I'm here to feed. I'm sure you have a great choice of humans too…" In a weird way, Anders was glad he was injured because it made him look at least a little bit weak. He was credible in the role of the vampire desperate for blood. She couldn't suspect he had drunk a girl dry less than 24 hours before.

"We do, of course, but before…" she began, turning to look at the tattooed female vampire, "search him," she ordered.  The bodyguard obeyed and took a step toward Anders.

The Kiwi stepped back on instinct, and since he was feeling threatened; he vamped out for a second. The bodyguard's eyes did the same thing but she stopped, waiting for further instructions from her boss.  Anders blinked the black color away and shot an offended glare at the proprietress. "Why search me? I have no hostile intentions and nothing to hide. It's not very nice to molest new clients like that."

"One is never too careful," Miss Gallagher stated blankly. She took her cane and hit the side of Anders' left calf with it and instead of the sound one would expect from a stick hitting a leg, it made a suspicious "tock!"

 _Shit._ Anders cursed internally.

"That's what I thought," Felicity smirked. "Go ahead, search him," she ordered again.  

The PR had no other options but to let the silent bodyguard do her job. She began by running her fat hands along his legs. It didn't take long before she found six little wooden stakes hidden under his trousers' fabric, tucked in adapted straps around his calves.  Anders had an inner sigh of relief since she didn't seem to notice the bandage on his thigh. The large female vampire put the stakes and the straps on the red carpet at her mistress' feet.

"So, you tried to enter my house heavily armed, Mr. Anderson, that's not very polite," Miss Gallagher sneered, drilling her cold steal gaze in Anders' eyes.

"One is never too careful," he replied with a smug grin. 

She chuckles with her schoolgirl high-pitched laugh that echoed in the hall and the staircase. "It's a good thing you're funny, sir."   

"Be gentle, fair maiden," Anders taunted the bodyguard as she was groping his hips and waist roughly under his jacket. She growled at the evident sarcasm but she was rewarded for her patience by two auto-injector pens hidden in the inside of Anders' trousers' belt. She gave them to the child vampire who scrutinized them with curiosity.

"Having allergies?" Felicity asked the Kiwi with a cocked brow.

 "Yeah, bloody peanuts," Anders replied with a mocking grin. They both knew it was impossible for a vampire to have that kind of health condition. 

"I'm fairly sure this doesn't really contain epinephrine, does it?" she asked him.

He didn't reply but forced a smile and suppressed a moan as the bodyguard hands were grabbing his wounded shoulder.   

The auto-injectors were the only ones of his weapons he had been able to bring with him from New-Zealand, the only that would cross the security at the airport without problem. He had had to buy the other weapons from Olaf's contact in Dublin. The pens were the blond PR's own creation. He had modified injectors and instead of epinephrine, there was werewolf blood inside. They were efficient weapons. You remove the top and shove it against another vampire's arm or leg and poof! You could only use it once in a fight but it could be enough to save your life. Olaf was his personal blood donator, which means he knew about this invention. One day that he was especially stoned, Olaf had talked about it to other werewolves. Now the injectors had become Auckland's werewolves' street gangs' main weapon against vampires. Fortunately, Olaf hadn't been stupid enough to say who the inventor was. If he had, Anders would have probably been killed by Auckland's vampires for having provided the werewolves with such an affordable stealth weapon.

Much to the blond vampire's annoyance, the bodyguard found the three medium sized stakes he had in the inside of his jacket. She also unclipped the holster under his armpit and she gave the five-seven and its silencer to her boss. Felicity inspected the gun with an obvious interest.

 As the bodyguard turned toward Anders again, he opened his jacket to show her that it was empty with a look on his face that meant "are you happy now? I'm defenseless." But the big woman slipped a hand in his collar, behind his neck, and took a long wooden knitting needle that was concealed in his suit jacket's lining. _Damn,_ Anders swore mentally, clenching his teeth in frustration. The needle was his plan E and now he had lost it. But he wasn't completely helpless. Andrew Johnson was never completely helpless. He still had his plan F. She had left him his car keys, thinking that they were useless, but the keychain was hiding his retractable hornbeam stake.

"That's an interesting weapon you got there…," the brothel owner commented, "it's the first time I hold a modified gun for wolf-shaped bullets. Where did you get it?"

"I have contacts…" Anders stated casually, hoping she wouldn't ask more questions. He was relieved that the tall tattooed female vampire had stopped touching him in order to stand behind her boss, waiting for instructions.  

"Is it as deadly as they say?" Felicity questioned him, setting the silencer on the five-seven.

Anders didn't have any time to answer; they got interrupted by a woman appearing from behind one of the wooden doors. She was cute and looked young --mid-twenties. Her long brown hair was gathered in a slightly undone but sophisticated bun decorated with black silk roses. She was wearing a black velvet corset and matching stockings. Anders' nostrils dilated by reflex but he didn't catch any blood scent. The prostitute was a vampire.

"What are you doing here? Where is Mister O'Brien?" Miss Gallagher snapped at her.

"He is gone, madam," the prostitute answered," he said he had something important to do this afternoon."  

The proprietress’ eyes widened with anger, "and you weren't able to keep him here any longer than thirty minutes? Clients that stay less than two hours make me lose money, YOU make me lose money." Miss Gallagher didn't even give the prostitute any time to apologize or explain. She lifted the gun, aimed and shot.

The prostitute made a small sound like a surprised hiccup. She stepped back and looked down at the hole in her chest. One second later her remains fell to the floor in a twirl of ashes.

Anders gulped. He had a hard time hiding his shock and disbelief in front of such a senseless murder.

"Hmm, it's quite efficient indeed. I like it," Miss Gallagher commented looking at the fire arm with an expression like childish awe on her face, like the gun was a new toy.  

All of a sudden, she looked at him and her gaze darkened dangerously. She seemed to instantly remember that the blond vampire who had tried to penetrate her brothel with a dozen of weapons on him was still standing in front of her.    

She took one of the injectors from the pile and as she came closer to Anders, pressing the tip of it on the side of his neck. She was slightly smaller than him and normally, Anders would have a chance against her but she wasn't alone and he was injured. He chose to stay still.

"What are we going to do with you, huh?" she pondered out loud, her eyes turning black but her fangs staying hidden. "You're quite of a blond cutie," she observed, her face one inch apart from Anders'. "If I chained you to a wall in one of my donjon rooms, I'm sure there would be several of my clients ready to pay a good price to fuck that angel face of yours." She leant forward and he heard her breathe through her nose as she was inhaling his scent. Anders couldn't detect any odor on her but apparently, maybe because of her old age, her sense of smell was more practiced than his because she hummed before saying: "you’ve got yourself a sexy little male recently, haven't you? Come on, tell me how it was…" she purred. Anders didn't reply, paralyzed with disgust but fighting the urge of pushing her away. It wouldn't be a good move to make her angrier than she already was. He didn't want her to unleash her goon on him. "I can see he bit you deep and good," she added before pressing a wet kiss with her reptile-cold lips on Mitchell's bite. He shivered unpleasantly. She must have noticed the temperature difference immediately because he felt her stiffen and she stepped back. "What the hell are you?" she bellowed.

"Does it really matter?" he asked, holding her gaze. "I just want to buy one of your humans and I'm ready to pay double price of what you would ask for it. Give me the older or the uglier, I don't mind, I'm not picky. And I also include the gun in the deal. Let me leave with what you would have sold me and I'll be gone, you'll never hear of me again."

"My policy is to never let a human who worked here come out of this house alive."

"The gun, the spare cartridges and the injectors…" Anders insisted.

She seemed to hesitate, just staring at him silently for long minutes. Finally, she turned on her heels and said "Follow me."

He followed her up the stairs. She took a set of keys from her suit and unlocked a double paneled wooden door. They crossed a large resting room with couches, card tables and a piano but nobody there. She unlocked another door and Anders couldn't help but see her as a feminine version of Bluebeard. With his manor hiding the corpses of his ex-wives behind locked doors, Bluebeard was probably no worse than Felicity Gallagher.    

He followed her through a long corridor. Each side of the corridor, there was several doors. Some were closed and the sounds that were coming through them didn't leave much to the imagination.  Some doors were opened and Anders’ gaze met the inviting ones of a few female vampire prostitutes dressed in nothing but provocative black velvet lingerie. They were like the mermaids in that ocean of lechery, their curves and lascivious gazes were their chant and he was one of those poor sailors who had to resist it for fear of being drowned.

Miss Gallagher unlocked another door and as soon as she opened it, the scent of blood hit him in the face with the force of a baseball bat. He understood they were in the part of the brothel where the human prostitutes were. This time he tried to look at them.

He failed. A young looking human male leaning on the doorframe of one of the rooms attracted his attention. The boy was probably between 20 and 25 years old. He smiled at Anders seductively and gave him a saucy wink as the PR passed by. The prostitute was naked except for a short red velvet loincloth. Obviously all the sex workers of the Velvet Curtain were dressed in that kind of fabric: red for the humans, black for the vampires. "Good day sir," the rent boy said in a seductive murmur as Anders stopped in the corridor to take a better look at him. The boy had a copper skin tone, anthracite eyes framed with long dark lashes and a long plaid of crow feathers colored hair brushing his lower back. While Anders was detailing his features, the prostitute had approached with that look of sweet innocence on his face that probably worked with a lot of clients. Not that vampires were especially attracted to innocence… In fact they were but not because they thought it was beautiful and pure, like most humans did, but because it was a sign of vulnerability and there was nothing a vampire liked more than destroy innocence and deprave purity.

 The young man took Anders' sleeve and tugged on it gently. "Do you want to come with me in my room, sir?" he purred suggestively. Anders' palms got moist. He felt his muscles contract as the venom flowed in them to make them stronger. It was the normal physiological instinctive reaction of a vampire who just spotted a potential prey. The sudden tension shot a painful blow in his wounded shoulder and leg. He gritted his teeth. His injured body was screaming for blood and the call of the hunt was hard to resist.

"I'm sure you have really long and sharp fangs," the dark haired prostitute simpered, "I'd let you bite me _wherever_ you want. I'd make you feel _amazing_. I taste _really_ good, you'll see. "

Anders shuddered, his mouth watering with saliva and venom. The boy was attractive and the blond vampire couldn't tear his eyes away from the tanned skin. He had seen several other prostitutes while walking down the corridor. Why did this specific one had made him stop? Since when had he had a thing for young looking lads with dark hair and dark eyes? He pondered that it was a shame that the boy's chest was hairless and that he would have been even more tempting if he looked a bit manlier. This thought had just popped in his brain when he realized. The only thing he was reproaching to this desirable young man is that he didn't look enough like…. Mitchell.

A sudden image appeared in his mind: Mitchell wearing nothing but a loincloth, dragging him into that room whispering "I'll make you feel amazing." Anders snatched his jacket coat out of the young man's grip, embarrassed by the instant erection the mental image had elicited in his trousers. At the same second, Miss Gallagher who had just unlocked another door at the end of the corridor, told him with an icy tone, making a chin gesture toward the brown eyed prostitute, "this one isn't for sale, Mr. Anderson."

Anders nodded and followed her, not giving another look to the young human.   

They took a narrow staircase that was leading to the attic, just under the roof of the manor. On the top of the stairs, they arrived in front of an old dusty door. "Wait here," she ordered him.

She came back a few minutes later, dragging a human woman by the arm. The prostitute looked confused and lost. Her dyed blond hair was messy and dirty and she was wearing an old ripped t-shirt that was showing a scrawny body—only skin and bones. She had dark circles around her empty eyes and her face had the characteristic nervous tics of a cocaine addict.

"This is the only one that I don't mind to get rid of," Miss Gallagher told him.

The woman didn't even react, looking at the Kiwi with a blank stare.

Anders sighed and bent his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. That girl wasn't healthy enough to survive two feedings. If he bought her, there would be blood for only one vampire. He had no choice. Mitchell needed blood as soon as possible. Who knew how long he could survive with a stake in the heart.

"How much?" he finally asked.

"20 000 £ plus the weapons," she smirked, probably thinking that Anders would renounce.

The blond didn't like her smile at all. It meant trouble. He knew it was better if he didn't try to bargain.

"Deal," he replied, "I give you 10 000 now and I give you the rest as soon as we are down the stairs in the hall and I'm sure I'm able to leave with the girl. If you let me get away from the manor without problems, and since I said I would pay double price, I'll leave another 20 000 £ at your gate." He opened his suitcase and gave her a pile of cash.

She licked her thin dried lips and he saw a flash of greed in her eyes. "Fine," she said. "Come on, little slut, follow the good sir," she told the prostitute.

As the female vampire was counting her money, Anders helped the skinny girl, who hadn't said anything yet, down the stairs.  

They got to the hall where the bodyguard was still waiting.

"It was a pleasure to do business with you, Mr. Anderson," Miss Gallagher told him after he had given her another 10 000 euros. "It would be nice to do it again sometime," she added with a nasty smirk.

Anders' eyes were cold as he bowed before her. "We both know it's the first and the last time that I set foot here," he sneered.

***

As soon as they were outside under the snow, the human woman shivered from the cold. Anders sighed. He took off his jacket and put it on her lean shoulders. "Come with me," he told her as softly as he could in the circumstances. She walked beside him, shooting him anxious glances once in a while as they took the road that was leading to the gate where Anders had left the car. She had good reasons to be anxious. She was probably good by now to recognize a desperately hungry vampire when she saw one.

The throbbing pain had come back in full force in the blond's body, making his jaws clench and his hands tremble. He knew that feeding would soothe the pain. All his body and every cell of his brain was obsessed with blood. He could hear her heart beating, her oxygenated hemoglobin rushing in her arteries, irrigating her body and flowing back to her heart by the veins in an endless circle. It was driving him completely mad. He wanted to tackle her in the snow and kill her, quick and silent, slicing her throat with his fangs and drink, drink, drink… bathing his tongue and lips in the warm nectar.

 But he was saving her red liquid sweetness for his coupling partner.

"What's your name?" he asked her suddenly. It was always more difficult to kill something that had a name.

"Ru..Ruby," she stuttered.

"That's not your real name, is it?" he questioned, not looking at her but at the wrought iron gate, only a few hundred of meters away now.

 "No…" she breathed.

 "It's okay, I can't judge people who don't use their real names," he replied, stopping on its tracks. He opened his suit case and left 20 000 euros in it, put the rest inside his trousers' pockets. When they resumed walking and got closer to the door, he realized that Kate was still there, leaning against the door of her green Jeep. He let out an annoyed sigh. He had totally forgotten about her.

After leaving the suitcase with the money near the gate, he opened it and let Ruby pass to the other side before he followed her.

As soon as he closed the gate behind him he heard the female vampire clearing her throat. "I'm surprised you're still alive," she told him. "Gallagher let you leave with a mint candy after you paid the bill? That's really not like her," she commented, looking at the prostitute.  

Anders had no time to lose with her. He handed her a few banknotes. "Take your money and just leave," he snapped.

She vamped out and hissed at him for good measure but she took the money, climbed in her Jeep and left nonetheless.  

Anders closed the passenger door of his SUV after Ruby got in. As soon as he was on his own seat, he turned around to check on Mitchell. The brunet's eyes were closed. Annie was still there and was petting his hair as the vampire's head was pillowed on her lap.

"Is he okay?" the Kiwi worried, forgetting to keep the Irish accent.  

"I wouldn't exactly say that he is okay…" Annie snorted, replying to Anders but looking at the blond woman he had brought back with a guarded expression.   

"I know that," Anders pressed her, impatient, "I mean, is he worse?"

"I don't know, it's hard to tell. He slept or was in a coma for most of the time you were gone."

The prostitute was looking from Anders to the unconscious vampire with a stake in his heart with a mouth slightly agape. "Who are you talking to?" she asked Anders.

Annie made a surprised hiccup. "Oh my god! She can't see me?"   

"Apparently not," the blond vampire observed, scrutinizing Ruby's clueless expression.

"That's not good, not good at all," Annie squeaked, shaking her head and making her curls danced around her face. "I have to get back to the house."

"Not now," Anders stated, starting the engine.

The prostitute had closed her mouth but was still looking at the vampire with wide eyes. She had apparently decided that her client was crazy and that it was better for her to shut her mouth.

"I think you don't understand," Annie objected, "if I wait for too long, I won't even have enough energy to get back to the house and far from the house I will decrease to a level one."

Anders could understand that being a poltergeist level one, who can't be seen or heard by anybody not even other supernaturals, was the last thing a ghost would want. It must be incredibly lonely. But he couldn't let Annie leave now. He always hated to depend on other people but he had no choice, he couldn't do it alone.

"I need your help, for Mitchell," he told the ghost. He heard her heave a resigned sigh.

He took the road toward Dunleer. His initial plan was to take the main road in the direction of Dublin before finding a discreet place where he could stop the car and feed Mitchell with the girl's blood, but he hadn't thought of the fact that, driving his SUV with a human on the passenger seat, he would be locked up in an enclosed space surrounded by her smell. His hand gripped the steering wheel with all the force of his hands, his knuckles turned white. He tried once again to contain his need to bite and quench the unbearable thirst. He could hear her breathing and he craved to be the one making these insupportable breathes cease. But fortunately, to her scent that was burning his nostrils, there was also Mitchell's soothing one mixed to it, reminding him that he had to wait. Vampires weren't selfless creatures by nature, but they had instincts telling them that if they found an especially compatible companion, it could be advantageous for them to keep it alive and healthy. They had the reflex to fight to protect another vampire who proved he or she was a good hunting partner and/or an agreeable coupling mate. But right now, even if he wanted to help Mitchell, he couldn't take it anymore. If he killed the girl right away, he would have made all these efforts and spent all that money for nothing.

He took a little secondary road just before Dunleer and drove only a few meters before pulling the car violently to the side of the road, making the tires screech. His eyes were already coal black but he had managed to keep the fangs retracted so he could give his instructions to Annie. Ruby seemed stressed but not that impressed. She was obviously still half-stoned and he surely wasn't the first vampire she saw like that.

The vampire locked the door of the car from the inside to be sure the girl wouldn't try to escape.  He reached a hand to open the glove-box, took a rope out of it and threw it to Annie.

"Can you still manipulate physical objects?" he asked her.

Apparently she could because Ruby let out a little panicked scream when she saw a rope squirming in the thin air like a live snake. She had seen plenty of vampires in her short life but no ghostly manifestations. She tried to open the car door, squeaking like a scared mouse but she was trapped with the monsters.  

Anders didn't pay attention to her. "Perfect," he told Annie. "You're going to tie me up, really tightly," he ordered, putting his wrists together behind the backrest of the driver's seat so she could tie them together. As Annie was executing Anders' command, she made a chin gesture toward the prostitute girl who was shaking with fear. "You are not going to kill her, huh? I don't want to be the accomplice of a murder."

"That's not my intention to kill her, or else I wouldn't ask you to tie me up," Anders pointed out; "when I’m restrained, it'll be your task to make sure Mitchell doesn't kill her."

Mitchell opened his eyes at the sound of his name and let out long moan of pain. "Anders?" he asked with a raspy voice.

Ruby was crying by now, her nail scratching the door she wasn't able to open. It was just now that she realized she was in danger. It wasn't like in the brothel… there weren't any bodyguards to make sure the client didn't kill her or no machine to give him a light electric shock before he could drink too much from her.

Anders didn't reply to his mating partner. His time was very limited. He made sure he had Annie's full attention. "Don't let Mitchell bite her in the neck or we aren't going to be able to stop the hemorrhage afterward. Make him bite her forearm. Don't let him drink more than 3 minutes 30 seconds. Take my watch to time him," Anders hastened to enumerate, his breath laborious. "Whatever I say or do, don't free me before that girl is far away. Understood?"

Annie nodded quickly, pulling on the ropes to secure the knot around the blond's wrists.  

"Say it!" Anders insisted.

"I swear I won't free you before she is gone."

"Thanks…"

Mitchell was fully woken up now, he was sniffing the air and his eyes had turned black as soon as he had caught the scent of the prey. Apparently, he could display quite an impressive force for an injured vampire because he let out a menacing growl before grabbing the backrest in front of him and literally tear it off the passenger seat to get to his quarry.

In normal circumstances, Anders would have whined that Mitchell was destroying his car, but right now he was too turned on for that. That demonstration of strength was arousing for the blond vampire who was suddenly craving to couple with that strong brunet male: to resist and surrender to his strength in turn and take pleasure from it. Anders drew out his fangs in a wanton modulated growl. Mitchell was crawling toward the scared girl but he stopped for a second and his jet-black gaze met his mating partner's. He replied to Anders' growl by a gentle and low-pitched hiss, like a soft sad greeting. Annie couldn't understand anything from that exchange but in that state, the two vampires didn't need any word to understand each other. That was a good thing because it wasn't really easy to talk with fangs drawn out. Basically, it meant:

Anders: Me = frustrated. Want you. Thirsty. Untie me.

Mitchell: Hello, babe. Want you as well. Very thirsty too. Know it's unfair for you.

Annie managed to grab Mitchell's hair in time as he was now aiming for the girl's neck.  The prostitute had thrown herself back against the dashboard of the car but there was no way she could escape. Annie forced Mitchell to lower his head to the girl's arm. A wail tore Anders' throat when he saw Mitchell's sharp fangs sink in her flesh. He struggled against his bonds like he was possessed by the demon but the knots didn't loosen up.

"Untie me," Anders ordered to Annie, as he managed to retract his fangs.  

"No," she objected calmly, looking down at the watch in her hand.  

"UNTIE ME, BITCH!" he thundered.

"Forget it."

He couldn't tear his eyes from Mitchell who was drinking. The more blood he smelled, the more he struggled, and struggling was making the pain in his shoulder more horrible than ever. His sight reduced to a narrow black tunnel just before he lost consciousness for good.

 

***

When Anders opened his eyes, he was lying on the backseat of his SUV, blanketed by a leather jacket. The car was moving. It was dark outside the windows. The blond vampire blinked a few times, trying to recollect how he had ended up there. The last thing he remembered was Annie tying him up to the driver's seat. Anders rubbed his sore wrists. He could still feel the burning of the rope on his skin.

"Hey, welcome back, sexy," Mitchell greeted him, his eyes leaving the road a few seconds to look at Anders with a smile.

The brunet looked different, Anders realized, he was… gorgeous. He didn't look like the deprived scrawny vampire he had met three days before. His deep brown eyes were sparkling and his skin had a healthy glow. He didn't look skinny anymore. His arms' muscles were filling the sleeves of a blue shirt he had borrowed from Anders quite nicely. He noticed for the first time that Mitchell had nice, full, plump lips.  

 "Where are we, where is your ghost friend?" Anders asked. "What did I miss?"

"Annie is gone. She had to go back to the house. After I fed, she helped me remove the stake and make a bandage but the wound was already starting to heal. Then she left. I made the blond girl eat a chocolate bar and drink the rest of your pack of orange juice. I let her leave then I untied you and put you on the back seat. I borrowed a shirt from your luggage and your car keys. Then I took the road to Dublin. That's where we are. We will arrive in Dublin within 30 minutes. That's about that," Mitchell explained, "Oh ! yeah, I forgot. I also gave you a bit of my blood a few minutes ago. I guess that's what made you regain consciousness."     

"Th… thanks," Anders stuttered. He was indeed feeling better. The pain was still there but more diffuse. "What day are we?" he asked, confused.

Mitchell took Anders' phone from the destroyed passenger seat and took a look at it. "We are on December 25, 12:46 AM."

"Gosh, really? Already? I think I lost the notion of time," Anders realized. He hadn't called Dawn yet, he had forgotten to wish her a merry Christmas. Vampires were not known for appreciating religious celebrations but he was always making a point to do something special for Dawn on Christmas. After all, ghosts were nostalgic little things who were more close to human's traditions than vampires. He felt bad; he was such an awful boss. He had to call her as soon as he could. She must have been worried sick.  

As if he was reading his mind, Mitchell cleared his throat. "I know we vampires don't especially care about baby Jesus but; Merry Christmas, Anders."   

Anders couldn't help but smile back weakly, "Merry Christmas, Mitchell."

"How are we going to celebrate it?" the brunet pondered, but the impish grin on his lips told Anders that the brunet already had an idea.

"Do you have any suggestion?" he still asked.  

"Hmmm. I remember you talked about a room in a chic hotel in Dublin… I'm sure we can order champagne from the room service."

"What? Champagne!? You have luxury tastes, mister! Do you know how much your last drink cost me? Nearly 50 000 bucks!!!"

Mitchell choked on his own saliva and coughed. "Really ?? Oh." He stayed shocked for a few seconds before a smirk appeared on his lips "but I’m worth the price, aren’t I?"

Anders felt his throat tighten with guilt. Mitchell deserved a good mate, a better mate than him. The brunet was one of a kind. He needed a coupling partner, if such vampire existed, that would be tender, loving and faithful: three things Anders wasn't.  "Yes," he breathed, almost inaudibly "you’re worth the price."

***

Ruby didn't know what to do with her new freedom. She had no family anymore and nowhere to go. In fact, the only thing she wanted right now was to snort a line of coke. She bought something to drink in a local coffee shop with some of the money the brown-haired vampire had given her and she wandered in the little town until sunset. There was nothing for her in Dunleer. Miss Gallagher was awful. The clients were awful. But at the Velvet Curtain, it was warm, warmer than here, and she could get her fix.   

It took her two hours walking in the snow to get back to the brothel. When the security guard let her in, her lips were blue. Her feet were soaked and were white and red from the chilblains.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Miss Gallagher asked as soon as her bodyguard brought the shivering prostitute in her office. "I'm surprised he didn't drink you dry."

"No…it's just the other vampire guy with a stake in his heart who drank from me," the young woman explained, "I can have a bit of coke, huh?"

"You saw a live vampire with a stake in his heart? What's his name. Can you describe him to me? " the proprietress asked,  suddenly very interested in the woman's ramblings.

"Yeah… he had long curly hair… and he looked tall…  he was sleeping on the back seat… when he woke up he said 'Anders'. I think he was talking about Mr. Anderson. But his name's 'Mitchell', I heard Mr. Anderson calling him that way," she narrated, "can I toot a line now?"

"Not quite, darling. Sit down. I need to know everything, everything you saw and heard," she ordered her, staring at the poor girl as she wanted to drill a hole in her face with her gaze.

Ruby told her all the information she could remember, her voice and hands shaking from the cold and the withdrawal.  

 As soon as she was over, Miss Gallagher called her bodyguard. The big female vampire, that was waiting the other side of the door, entered the office immediately. "Take her to the basement and get rid of her," she told her, pointing a finger at the prostitute, "and take a snack while you're at it."

Ruby cried and tried to escape but she knew it was over. The bodyguard didn't have any trouble grabbing her and pulling her out of the office, a large palm pressed against her mouth not to alarm all the people in the brothel with her screams.

As soon as they were gone, the child vampire opened one of the drawers of her desk and took an old notebook out of it. She turned the pages, scanning the lines until she smiled, finally finding what she was searching for: the phone number of a funeral home in Bristol called B. Edwards.  

***

Seth was busy playing with a pen, looking at the ceiling of Herrick's office, his feet propped on the desk. He could do anything he wanted since his boss wasn't there to scold him. He still jumped when the phone rang. Who could phone here at this hour of the night? He took the handset and tucked it between his head and his shoulder.

"Yep?"

"I know something that might interest you," said a child voice.  

He frowned. It took him a few seconds to recognize that voice. At least 130 years had passed since he had heard from Felicity Gallagher.   

"Hm, I guess I'll have to pay to get that precious information. It better be really interesting if you want me to pay for it."  

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be ready to empty your bank account when I'll tell you what it is about."

"Yeah…" he snorted. He knew her well enough to know that she could do anything for money. But he was intrigued. She wouldn't bother call if she wasn't sure it could be lucrative for her.   

"I found Herrick's precious twin babies," she said without warning.  

The pen dropped to the floor, slipping from Seth's hand. He put his feet under the desk and straightened on the chair. "You have my full attention."  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER EIGHT EXCLUSIVE PROMOTION : Write a comment and get a free kiss. :) ;) 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	9. Fear of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a part of Mitchell that couldn't accept that fact: he couldn't accept that Anders' heart belonged to someone else. No matter how much effort and how long it would take; the brunet would seduce that blue-eyed male.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: violence (minor character's death) and sexxx
> 
> Special thanks, as usual, for my little fairy Katyushha for sticking up with me and my crazy mind and for betaing like a pro.

_Auckland,  1988._

_His mother was dead and he was going to die too if he stopped running. His legs were weak, his throat was burning and he had tears in his eyes but he couldn't stop. The man with the gun was still after him. The boy had to find a place to hide because soon the exhaustion would make him collapse to the ground. He was panicking, all his body felt cold and numb and there was a metallic taste of blood in his mouth from his irritated lungs. He knew his pursuer was still there, like a shadow, following him and just waiting to trap him into a corner to kill him with a bullet straight through the brain. He had seen his mother die like that only an hour ago. Just before she was killed, she had told him to run. He had listened to her and he was still running. The boy turned onto another street and that's when he saw the gate of the cemetery._

_"Never go to the cemetery or near a funeral home," mommy had told him more than once, "it's the places where the bloodsuckers are and you don't want to meet one of them."_

_He was quite obedient for a fourteen years-old and he had always followed his mother's advice. He was too afraid of the bloodsuckers anyway. He had never seen one in real life but he had seen movies: the vampires had sharp fangs and they were wearing black and red capes.  Though, mum had told him that Auckland's bloodsuckers were different: even more dangerous than the vampires from the old movies because they looked like any human._

_He had always stayed far from cemeteries, until now. In front of the gate, the boy hesitated. The cemetery had a lot of little alleys and a lot of possible places to hide. He was afraid of the bloodsuckers but even more of the man with the gun. After all, maybe bloodsuckers didn't even exist and his mother had only told him that to keep him from wandering around outside at night. He shot a glance above his shoulder, the man was getting closer. He didn't hesitate this time and ran through the gate into the dark cemetery, far from the street lights. He was limping and his body was about to let him down. Every leg muscle was hurting and he couldn't afford taking his time to choose a hiding place._

_Out of breath, he jogged across a grass area toward the section of the cemetery where the mausoleums were. He spotted one of them in particular; the one guarded by two angel statues each side of the door. The little stone mausoleum with the angels had its door slightly opened. He entered, closed the door behind him and curled in a ball in a corner. There was a little opening at the bottom of the door and he could perfectly see what was going on outside under the dim light of the half-moon.  His keen ears heard footsteps in the gravel of the path. He was trapped there. The mausoleum only had one door. If the man found him, he was dead. His heart was beating so hard it was making him nauseous._

_"Where are you? Come on! No need to hide!" the man shouted. "I won't hurt you, I promise. I just wanna talk to you." The boy could see his boots just a few meters in front of the mausoleum and he held his breath. He didn't move from his hiding place. He knew it was a lie. This stranger had tortured and killed his mommy; he would certainly do the same with him._

_"Where are you, ugly little beast of Satan?" the man breathed through his teeth and the boy was close enough to hear it._

_The boy's throat was painful, itching and was full of mucus from the crying. It was threating to choke him. He was resisting the urge to cough but it was hurting too much and breathing was getting more and more difficult with every second. He couldn't help the strangled cough that passed his dry lips. He tried to muffle the sound by putting two of his hands before his mouth. It was useless because the man had heard him. He saw his feet shifting as the killer took a step directly toward the mausoleum where the boy was hidden. The teenager braced his legs in his arms with hiccups of panic but the man never reached the door._

_A shadow passed in front of the mesh opening of the mausoleum door, blocking the boy's view for a second. Then, the shadow threw itself at the man violently and tackled him to the ground. The murderer let out a surprised huff when he hit the ground._

_The man stayed on his back and apparently, he couldn’t stand up again. The boy had a pretty good night vision and he could see that his pursuer had now his hands pinned to the ground each side of his body, under the sharp heels of fancy stilettos._

_"Let me go, demon slut!" the man groaned._

_"Tsk tsk tsk," a feminine voice scolded, "it isn't really nice to talk to a lady like that." She applied pressure on her heels, making them crush the man's hands.  He let out a long moan of pain. "One day the Christ will return to this world and cleanse the earth from the abominations like you," he spat._

_"Yeah, yeah. I heard it many times, and look: we're still here," she replied, annoyed and unimpressed._

_"_ _Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum," the man started to recite. The boy had already heard that language, it was Latin : a prayer. The reaction of the woman was immediate. "Shut up!" she ordered, but the killer went on : "Adveniat regnum tuum,_ _  
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra."_

_"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!" she yelled, an accent of pain in her voice, like the words we draining the energy out of her body._

_"_ _Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie."_ _As he kept on praying out loud, she had to step back, freeing the man's hands. From what the boy could see, it seemed at first that the woman had tripped to the ground but the boy understood that it was the man who had grabbed her clothes to bring her down. The boy crawled closer to the door where he could peek by the opening to see what was going on and if there was a way he could take the opportunity of the confusion to escape._

_The man had a hand around the woman's neck now, still praying out loud and he was reaching for something inside his coat, his gun maybe, but he didn't have time to take it because another swift shadow appeared behind him from nowhere. He would never know what hit him. The man let out a weird shocked grumble and he fell to his side in the gravel, a wooden stake planted in the side of his neck. The new actor in the horror scene was a blond man dressed in a classy black suit.  The woman refused the blond man's outstretched hand and she stood up on her own, brushing dust off her body conscious dress._

_"How many times will I have to tell you, Michele? You shouldn't play with food, "the blond man chid her. "One day you'll get in trouble.  Why didn't you kill him right away?"_

_"I was waiting for you, but you're such a slow arse," she rebuked, pushing her long dark hair behind her shoulders._

_"I saved your life and that's how you thank me, by insulting me?" the blond frowned._

_She grabbed his tie and pulled him closer playfully. "You would have been really upset if I had been killed, yeah?" she simpered._

_"Oh yeah," the blond man replied with a touch of sarcasm, "especially when Gundersen would have had me staked because of it."_

_"You think he knows about us?" she asked, caressing his chest through the fabric of his shirt._

_"I guess he knows, and I hope it makes him very mad," the other smirked. He shot a look at the body of the man on the ground nearby. "We should feed before the blood loses its taste," he observed._

_The boy hidden in the mausoleum stiffened with fear. This was confirming his suspicions: they were bloodsuckers._

_"You know what?" Michele asked in a purr, "It would be fun if you bit and turned that one."_

_The blond man grabbed her butt and pulled her against him. "Oh… it turns you on to see me turning them, doesn't it?"_

_She nodded with a delighted giggle._

_He let go of her in order to kneel before the body to study it. "As tempting as you put it, I won't turn that one. I'm pretty sure this man is one of those Jesus freaks who hunt supernaturals. I wonder what he was doing here... Anyway, you already know what Gundersen does to my male venom-children."_

_"You're no fun," she protested._

_"I promise I'll find another way to make up for it later. Let's feed now," he decided removing the stake from the man's neck. "Ladies first," he added as he stood up to give room to the female bloodsucker._

_The boy couldn't help but gasp when he saw the woman's eyes turn pitch black. This wasn't his mother's invention after all.  He felt the cold fear paralyzing every one of his muscles because the blond man had suddenly turned his head toward the mausoleum. His eyes were black as well now, and he had lifted his head and was sniffing the air. Michele fell on her knees to the ground and started to sip and lick the blood from the corpse's neck. When she was done, a few minutes later, she stood up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand._

_"Stay on guard while I'm feeding, I think we aren't alone," the blond vampire informed her before leaning down to take his well-deserved share of the prey._

_As her mate was drinking, Michele scrutinized the surroundings. The boy knew she was trying to catch his scent. He had to stay still, not make any sound, keep his breathing as low as possible and pray that the bloodsuckers would not find him._

_"There is a smell… like a wet dog," she commented._

_The blond man chuckled; licking his lips, but didn't reply immediately. Only a few minutes later, when he stood up and his eyes went back to normal he told her with an amused tone, "you aren't used to werewolf smell, are you?"_

_"I'm maybe only 61 years old but you don't have to treat me like I'm a toddler," she snapped._

_"There is a werewolf not far from here," he informed her, ignoring her rebuff, "I think that's what this guy was after," he added, pointing at the body lying on the ground._

_The hidden boy could smell the bloodsucker's scent too. They didn't smell like humans. It wasn't repellent in itself but it was hard to describe. They smelled a bit like dusty artificial flowers: like something that had the appearance of being alive but was both old and lifeless._

_"It's not the full moon. We must find it and get rid of it," Michele sneered, "we can't let it wander freely on our territory."_

_"Indeed," the man replied before taking a wooden stake from the inside of his coat and handing it to the female bloodsucker, without another word._

_The teenager crawled back to the dark corner of the mausoleum, trying to be small and invisible against the cold stoned wall.  Unfortunately, just like him, bloodsuckers had keen senses. The boy screwed his eyes shut but he could hear the footsteps of the vampire couple coming his way. The door slammed open and the silver moonlight lightened the inside of the mausoleum and a scared boy, covered with dust and with spider webs glued in his light brown hair._

_"Aw, it's a stray puppy, how cute!" Michele cooed as soon as she saw him. "We should put down this filthy little thing before it transmits rabies," she added with disgust._

_The male bloodsucker looked at the boy pensively. "Michele… it's getting late, you should get home before Gundersen comes back. I'm going to take care of it," he told her, still staring at the boy._

_"And let you have all the fun alone? Pfff," she huffed._

_"I think you should go," he insisted, his voice neutral and his attitude composed._

_She grunted but gave him back his stake and took her leave, cursing and pestering her mate under her breath._

_After she was gone, the werewolf and the vampire eyed each other without a word for a while. The bloodsucker crouched in the doorframe of the mausoleum to be at the boy's level. "What are we going to do with you, huh?" he sighed._

_The little ball of fear in the corner gulped but didn't answer._

_"Where are your parents?" the bloodsucker asked with a calm, low tone._

_"My mother is dead. I don't have a father, " the boy replied with a small raspy voice._

_"That hunter, he was searching for you, right?"_

_"Yes, he killed my mother."_

_"She was a werewolf as well, I imagine."_

_The boy nodded._

_"It's she who infected you?"_

_"She didn't mean to," the teenager protested._

_"I see," the blond man breathed, frowning and rubbing his forehead.  "Michele is right, you know. I would do you a favor by killing you. All alone by yourself in Auckland, you won't survive for long. If you are lucky enough to stay alive, you'll probably be recruited by a vampire brothel or locked up in a cage where they will make you fight humans on full moons for the vampires' entertainment. You don't know it yet, but death is preferable to that," the man explained, playing with the stake in his hands.  "What do you think about that?" he asked the boy._

_"I don't want to die," the teenager sobbed, tears rolling on his cheeks._

_The bloodsucker tilted his head to the side. "Nah. Of course you don't," he said with a little smile.  "What's your name, lad?"_

_"O…Olaf," the boy hiccupped._

_"I'm Andrew Johnson," the other replied, reaching for a handshake._

_At first, the boy was too scared to make any move but the vampire only stayed there, waiting patiently, his hand still offered to him. From his corner, the boy studied the other supernatural. The bloodsucker was smiling softly and didn't have any threatening attitude. Maybe it was a trap but anyway, Olaf was already trapped so he had nothing to lose.  After a while, he unfolded his legs and leant forward tentatively. He reached out his own hand, slow and reluctant, and finally took and shook the vampire's cold one._

_"You aren't going to kill me, right?"_

_"No Olaf. I'm not going to kill you."_

***

 

Perched on the top of Anders' desk, her bare feet on the paper sheets of some forgotten client' files, Dawn heaved a sigh.  She had her legs braced in her arms and her chin was resting on her knees. She had listened to Olaf's story like a little girl to a Christmas tale. Olaf was known as someone who exaggerated often and made up a lot of fanciful stories, but this one was different. Dawn knew this one was true. The guardian ghost recognized her beloved protégé so well in that story: his determination and this strange mix of ruthlessness and compassion.

"He never told me about that story. I didn't know you had met him when you were still a kid," she told her werewolf friend.

"Well, you know him. He doesn't like to talk about his past," Olaf stated before lightening his joint and exhaling a long puff between his teeth.

"What happened after? After he found you, I mean," she asked, curious.

"He helped me to give my mother a proper burial and then, he hid me from the other vampires in his apartment for a few months. He made an investigation and eventually discovered that my mother had a step-sister who was living in Morrinsville. He also learnt that said step-sister had a fishy past linked to organized crime. Andrew never really told me what it was about. Anyway, he brought me to Morrinsville and told her that if she treated me well and let him visit me once a month, he wouldn't say anything to the police. It worked. For the next five years, I had decent food and a roof under my head. Every full moon, Anders was making his monthly visit, picking me up with his car and bringing me to an abandoned house in the countryside near Te Aroha for my transformation. He did it until I was old enough to rub along by myself."

"He was feeling some kind of responsibility toward you, apparently," Dawn analyzed.

"Yes," Olaf agreed, his eyes lost in the nought for a moment. "I never really understood why he had spared my life that day, and moreover, why he had taken care of me… a werewolf… the natural enemy of vampires. It's probably one of the weirdest thing I'm going to say in my life, and I swear it's not my drugged state talking, but since I never known my biological father, I think Johnson is probably the closest thing I ever had to a father figure."

 Dawn smiled softly. Her boss was a very complex and multifaceted being. In her eyes, this act of kindness coming from him didn't seem strange, even for a vampire.  There was some good in him, even if he didn't want to acknowledge it himself.

 Now that Dawn understood the nature of the bond she had with Anders, it helped her understand why she had always seen the qualities in him more than his flaws. She was glad to know, after all these years, why since the first moment she had laid her eyes on Anders, as she was dying on a sidewalk, she had felt for him this undying and unconditional love that had nothing to do with sexual attraction. Learning that she was his guardian angel also helped her to make peace with her own death. There was nothing that could've prevented her from being hit by that truck, that day of July. It had been her destiny all along.  He was her destiny.

But now Anders was gone. He was far away and she hadn't got any news for a few days now. She was worried, of course, but she was also withering like a flower that one would have forgotten to water.  Her poltergeist levers had decreased. She wasn't able to use the phone or the computer anymore. She couldn't pick objects up and yesterday morning, she had panicked when Olaf had told her that he was able to see through one of her arms. She was disappearing from this world.

She knew something must have happened to her best friend and felt so helpless. She wasn't powerful enough to disappear from New Zealand and reappear straight away in Ireland.  She could have hidden in a plane, maybe, but she didn't know where Anders was anymore. He had told her he would leave for London soon. As far as she knew, he could be anywhere in Europe by now.

`"Can you try again, one more time?" she asked Olaf, suddenly anxious all over again.  

The werewolf sighed. "We already tried eight times in the last hour…"

"Please !" she insisted.

The bald man shook his head with resignation and took the phone from the table to call the blond vampire.

 

***

 

The Christmas celebrations didn't really go as expected since Mitchell was celebrating alone.

Well, celebrating was probably not the best word to describe his current activity that consisted in sipping champagne seated on an armchair while watching his coupling mate sleep. Not that watching Anders  wasn't agreeable in itself. In fact it was quite enjoyable since the blond's half naked body sprawled on the large bed was quite a sight to behold.

Mitchell had insisted that they took the honey moon suite of the Merrion's hotel to see how far he could push his luck and despite a lot of eyes rolling on Anders' side and much to Mitchell's surprise, the blond PR had accepted.  

However, Mitchell was worried. As soon as they got into their spacious room, Anders had let Mitchell order all the champagne bottles he wanted but it was obvious that the blond vampire wasn't feeling well. Mitchell had offered a bit of his blood but the Kiwi had declined it, apparently too exhausted to even have the strength to bite.  Anders apparently didn't even have enough energy to feel any sense of pride either because he had accepted the brunet's help to get rid of his suit jacket and his shirt. Then, he had collapsed on the bed and had fallen asleep right away.

Mitchell knew that Anders was injured but when he was undressing him and he had seen the bandage on the blond' shoulder, he had felt bad that he had acted like a spoiled child while his mating partner was wounded. He wanted to check on the Kiwi's wounds but he was afraid of waking him up. Instead, he was seated there, detailing the long line of the refined nose, the pale lashes, the round ears, the curves of the full lips, the slight ginger stubble on the cheeks, the tone arms and the inviting belly. The brunet would have liked to bask in the warm sensuality of his silent contemplation but there was the annoying buzzing sound of Anders' phone preventing him from doing so.

The phone just didn't stop ringing in the past two hours. Apparently, there was someone who really wanted to talk to the blond vampire. Someone who was probably worried for him: someone who cared for him. This thought was filling the brunet with an uneasy bitterness. As the phone started buzzing again a few minutes later, Anders emitted a sleepy groan of protest. Mitchell put his glass aside and walked to the nightstand to take the phone. He wouldn't take the call. It wasn't any of his business, but he didn't want it to wake the blond up as he obviously needed to rest.

Mitchell's eyes caught the name of the caller on the screen just before he turned it off. It was a certain "Dawnsie".  It was a weird name. He put the phone back on the nightstand and it's only when he sat back in his armchair that Mitchell understood it was probably an affectionate nickname for "Dawn".  Anders had someone in his life after all. Maybe it was another vampire: at least that would explain why he seemed so healthy. He had someone to hunt with, which meant more regular feedings. Love between vampires was a rare thing but it wasn't impossible either. They weren't creatures for whom love came easily. Strangely, it was more common for a vampire and a human to fall in love, even if it rarely ended well for the human. Mitchell had loved Josie, long ago. Maybe this "Dawn" was a human too. Either way, Anders was cheating on that girl with him. The brunet could have felt a kind of satisfaction knowing this fact… but he didn't. It just made him realize that Anders wasn't his. There was a part of him that couldn't accept that fact: he couldn't accept that Anders' heart belonged to someone else.  No matter how much effort and how long it would take; the brunet would seduce that ocean-eyed male.

About fifteen minutes later, Mitchell straightened on his chair and put his glass on the table again, knowing even before it happened, that Anders was about to wake up.

The blond blinked a few times and his eyes shifted from side to side anxiously as he was trying to remember where he was. He opened his mouth slightly and gasped for air, his fists clenching in the sheets, confused and starting to panic. In an instant, Mitchell was by his side, next to the bed.  He noticed with worry that Anders was shivering, his skin slick with sweat. The tall vampire put a hand on Anders' burning forehead and the Kiwi flinched at the contact.

"Hey… Anders… shhhh, it's fine…it's me…" Mitchell soothed him, running a hand through wet blond hair.

Anders' eyes met the brunet's and Mitchell felt the other vampire relax immediately. "How are you feeling?" Mitchell asked with a concerned smile.  

"I've been better," Anders muttered before shutting his eyes and inhaling a shaky gulp of air, obviously in pain.

"Is your shoulder your only injury?" Mitchell enquired, gentle fingers already undoing the bandage.

"My leg," he simply breathed.

 Anders didn't try to protest or to resist the other man's examination. Even if the wound of his shoulder wasn't bleeding it was still ugly. But what was making Mitchell frown with worry was the fact it had begun to heal a few hours before, probably when he had given the blond a bit of his blood, and the bullet was still stuck in Anders' shoulder. Like with the stake, the pain wouldn't reduce as long as the foreign body was still in the wound.

"Would you mind if I took off your trousers to check on your leg?" he asked Anders softly.

 The blond only shook his head, his eyes still shut.

Mitchell proceeded to undo and pull down Anders' pants as carefully as possible, still eliciting a few moans of pain from him. The Kiwi was naked under his pants but the brunet was too focused on his mating partner's wellbeing to be rejoiced by the view. The gunshot wound on the thigh was in a similar state. Though, in this one, the brunet could clearly see the burn that the werewolf blood had caused in the wound. It looked very painful. As much as Mitchell was searching for a rational explanation, there was nothing that could explain how they had both survived their injuries. Of course, there were stories, more like legends, about vampires among the old ones who could survive staking, werewolf blood, beheading and fire, but Mitchell never took these stories seriously. He still couldn't believe they were real, even after what happened to him. There had to be an explanation of what happened to Anders and him somehow, other than old fables.  

After his examination of Anders' condition, Mitchell realized that since the wounds had already started to heal, if he wanted to take the bullets out, he would have to open them again. He had to make a move soon. Anders' state seemed to get worse. His shivers were gaining in intensity and his lips were pale and trembling. "I'm cold," the blond quaked, his unfocused gaze meeting his mate's.  

"It's because you have fever," Mitchell replied, taking his hand and patting the back of it gently.

"I can't. I can't have fever, I'm not supposed to feel the cold, I am a vampire," Anders objected.

"I'm well aware about the fact that you're a vampire, babe," Mitchell answered because he didn't know what explanation to give to the Kiwi since he was as confused as him.

The only thing he knew was that it was urgent that he made him stop suffering. "Anders," the taller vampire said softly but firmly, squeezing the blond's hand to make sure he had his full attention. "I'm going to open your wounds to take the bullets out. We are going to do it together, okay?  You'll feel better after."

"I can live with those bullets; I already have two in the right calf that are there for a hundred years," Anders protested.

 Mitchell raised a brow, "okay… but I guess these ones weren't filled with werewolf blood," he pointed out.

"Yeah. You're right," he blond admitted in a shaky sigh, "okay… let's do it."

Mitchell left the side of the bed to search in the first aid kit for tweezers to extract the bullets.  They had brought all the content of Anders' car in the hotel room, including a few wooden stakes and one injector pen that he still had in a stash in the car. Even Felicity Gallagher could have never disarmed him completely.

Anders knew too well that Mitchell didn't need a knife or a scalpel to cut his flesh. These instruments were useless for someone who had fangs. He also knew that Mitchell venom would help ease the pain and close the wound but when Mitchell vamped out and lowered his head toward his thigh, he flinched and tensed, holding his breath.

As soon as he noticed Anders' fright, the taller vampire made his eyes get back to their usual soft chocolate color and he reached a hand to give Anders' flank a soothing caress. "Just relax," he murmured.

 "I'm really relaxed," Anders lied in a snort.   

Mitchell chuckled. "Try to think about it as a kind of love bite," he suggested.

"Well it's difficult…" the kiwi observed.

"If you're a good boy, I'll reward you afterward," the brunet said with a wink.  

"Stop talking and just do it," Anders grunted, impatient.  

Mitchell obeyed and the blond clenched his teeth but the shot of pain didn't last long before the sedative effect of the venom kicked in. Before he could even be aware of it, the bullet was already in the bin.

"You're ready for the last one?" the brunet questioned him, blinking the black eyes away.

Anders nodded so Mitchell didn't lose time and vamped out again. He placed a chaste kiss on the blond's sweaty neck before he repeated the process with the shoulder. Since this wound was deeper, Anders couldn't help the moan of pain to escape past his lips when the fangs pierced the already abused flesh. Mitchell made it as quick as possible and after he had got rid of the bullet, he licked the healing wound a few times to close it completely.

When it was over, Anders heaved a long moan of relief.

"Already feeling better?" Mitchell questioned, rubbing the tip of his nose along a stubbly jawline affectionately.

"God! Yes. Thanks…." Anders breathed, looking at the ceiling.

"I felt the same when Annie took the stake out of my chest, but you weren't conscious so I couldn't thank you properly for what you did for me," Mitchell said between heated kisses on the Kiwi's neck and cheek as he laid down on the bed next to his mate.

Anders turned his head to give the other vampire a lazy smile.  "At some point, we should stop saving the other's life in turn."

"Or maybe not…" Mitchell added quietly.

They looked into each other's eyes for a while. Slowly and carefully, the brunet reached a hand and cupped Anders' chin. Since Anders didn't make any move to escape, Mitchell captured his soft warm lips in a kiss. The Irishman kept his eyes opened long enough to see that the other man had closed his, responding to the kiss with abandon.

It got more sensual quickly. The Kiwi's lips and tongue were so soft and Mitchell appreciated every second of it. They didn't even need to couple. Mitchell was content just to be next to Anders in the intimacy and the comfort of a proper bed.

When they parted, Anders rolled onto his side and started unbuttoning the shirt Mitchell had borrowed from him. "I've been a very good boy, huh?" he asked as he anchored his dark blue gaze in Mitchell's hazel one.

"Of course, you deserved your reward, " Mitchell agreed with a naughty smile. He took off his shirt completely and tilted his head to the side, exposing his jugular to give Anders a better access to bite. When he felt the blond's fangs sinking into his flesh, he couldn't help the immediate hard on that came with it. He passed an arm around Anders and ran a hand up and down his back. "Hmm, yeah… that's it, my beauty," he encouraged his lover, "take it all, take all you need."

"I don't think I've been rewarded enough for my patience and my exemplary courage," Anders mused as soon as he was done sealing the bite on Mitchell's neck.

"Greedy much I can see. What do you want? I am your humble servant," the brunet smiled.

"Hm," the PR pondered with a smirk, undoing Mitchell's belt buckle, "I'm going to think about it while I'm taking off your pants. It might give me inspiration."

"Oh… you want to mate? You're feeling really well now I can see," the Irishman panted, shooting a glance at Anders' shoulder only to realize with astonishment that the wound was now a barely visible round scar. His own injury was still hidden under the bandage Annie had fixed for him but he had to admit that he didn't feel it anymore.

Mitchell buried his fingers in soft blond strands, closed his eyes and let out a sigh of pleasure as Anders trailed kisses and nips down his stomach.  

He should have guessed what the Kiwi's plan was but he still gasped with surprise and his eyes opened wide before turning pitch black when a very hot and wet mouth engulfed his throbbing erection. One of Anders' hands was holding on firmly to Mitchell's hip to steady him. "By all the Old Ones….Anders !" Mitchell moaned, loud and low-pitched, throwing his head back and his wild curls spilling on the white pillow. The intensity of the pleasure shooting up Mitchell's spine was nearly unbearable. "Don't you dare stop what you're doing," he pleaded.

 The blond PR complied.

Mitchell couldn't last long, not with such a treatment: not when a skillful mouth and an agile slick tongue were devouring his member like it was the sweetest lollipop, not when that little blond wonder had the indecency to fucking moan just from the sensation of having a big cock in his mouth. When the brunet came with a sharp cry, not able to take it anymore, Anders swallowed it all just as eagerly as he did with Mitchell's blood a few moments before.

It took Mitchell a while to gather his wits but his passion and his desire for his blond lover hadn't faded in intensity at all. They exchanged a long messy kiss and Mitchell rolled on top of the smaller male. He nipped at Anders' neck, inhaling his intoxicating scent and sucked a purple mark there.  "Such a good boy," he purred, "tell me what you need. Tell me what I have to do to please you."

"Bite me and then blow me," Anders ordered, pressing a demanding hard-on on Mitchell's lower stomach.  "Please," the blond added in a murmur as Mitchell trailed kisses along his shoulder to his arm. The brunet felt his own erection come back to life as soon as he bit down the firm curve of a bicep. The smaller vampire responded to the bite with a delighted moan.  

As soon as he was done sipping Anders' sweet blood, Mitchell didn't lose any time and nestled his head between Anders' thighs to return the favor.  He took him close to the edge three times until the blond was shaking, pleading for release in English and Gaelic, his eyes impossibly black.

When the blond vampire was spent, they both fell asleep, Mitchell's arms circling Anders' waist and his head pillowed on the golden hairline of the smaller male's belly.

 

***

 

They didn't leave the room and barely left the bed for the next three days.  

They were only taking quick showers and short naps between couplings. They barely talked either: the language of the blood, venom and flesh didn't need any words apart from the occasional purrs, the moans, the groans and hisses.  They were already absorbing each other's essence through the blood; there was no use of verbal exchange.

 They never seemed to be able to quench that deep visceral lust they had for each other. Mitchell was sometimes exhausted from losing blood to Anders' hunger but he was taking as much energy from the other vampire's blood and in the end, it was always reaching a kind of balance.

And then, when Mitchell thought he had enough, he couldn't help but crawl back to Anders in the bed to touch him, kiss him and bite again. Mitchell had Anders' blood's taste on his tongue and his venom running in his veins from the numerous bites he had on his body by now. The brunet had Anders in every one of his skin pores. He had him, literally under his skin.

 That was all vampires mating was about -- it was all about the exchange of blood and venom. It was the only thing that really counted. The part when they were getting each other off with mouth, hands and body was in fact facultative; it was pleasant but not necessary. The actual sex was more like a pantomimic re-enactment of human love-making for the sake of good old times than anything else. It was only the hunger of two monsters dressed-up as a human's exchange of affection. That was the kind of couplings Mitchell was used to with other vampires. But here, with Anders, it felt different.

On the outside, they seemed to be driven by vampire instincts at their purest, but inside, Mitchell could swear he hadn't felt such an intense happiness and such a sensation of life for a very long time, since the last time he had been, indeed, alive. It was both wonderful and scary.

Mitchell was afraid it was a nice illusion that would shatter soon. They couldn’t stay in that hotel room forever and he was scared to see Anders leave him. The Kiwi was obviously a successful businessman and Mitchell had nothing much to offer apart from a corner of his tiny room in the pink house in Bristol with a ghost and a werewolf as house mates. There was no way Anders would choose to leave whatever life he had for that. He would never agree to follow him: the hospital cleaner who was struggling to pay his rent.  Trying to talk with the blond about a possible future seemed absurd in the circumstances. He didn't even have to ask Anders to know that for him, what they were living was meant to be nothing more than a short idyll. Despite knowing all that, the affection the brunet was feeling for his mating partner was genuine.

It always took Mitchell longer to fall asleep so he took these opportunities to pet Anders' hair tenderly, caress his relaxed face with the tip of his fingers. In those moments, when he knew that the blond was asleep, he also whispered the things he knew he would dare say out loud when Anders could really hear them. " _Tá tú go hálainn_ ," [you are beautiful] he had whispered to a sleeping Anders on a few occasions, putting featherlike kisses on the blond's forehead.

When he wasn't asleep, the Kiwi seemed to be a bit more open than before to Mitchell's demonstrations of tenderness. He didn't object to aftermath cuddles anymore. He let Mitchell hold him as much as he wanted and didn't protest even once. Often, he even returned the embrace and leant in the hug with a content sigh.  

A few times, Mitchell thought that he should call George and Annie, let them know he was fine, but usually Anders chose that very moment to start to stir and stretch in his arms, waking up. As the blond lips travelled across his pectorals to catch a dark pink nipple, Mitchell forgot the existence of the rest of the world instantly.

At some point, in the evening of the third day, Mitchell had his face buried in Anders' neck when he noticed that something in Anders' scent had changed.  The sweet apple-like fragrance he liked so much was still there, but there was also something else, a fresh earthy scent, like when you walk into a pine forest just after rain. The new smell was both foreign and strangely familiar. His eyebrows rose when he understood. It was his own scent he was detecting on Anders. The blond had drunk so much of Mitchell's blood that his scent was now a mix of both theirs. Mitchell smiled and tightened his embrace around the smaller body. He liked the feeling it gave him that Anders was now his male for real.

"Mitchell?" the Kiwi suddenly grunted.

"Yes?" the brunet replied, looking at Anders to notice with a slight worry that his lover had dark circles starting to appear around his eyes.

" _Tá tart mór orm_ ," the blond breathed. [ I am very thirsty.]

Mitchell should have figured out that his blood wouldn't do the job forever and that at some point; his mate would need a proper feeding to recover from his injuries fully.

"Oh, baby, _tá náire orm_ [I'm ashamed], I should've suggested that we go on a hunt sooner. We should get dressed and go out tonight. Are you in shape enough to hunt?"

"Yeah," the Kiwi, replied, leaving the bed straight away and opening his suitcase to take some clothes. "Don't worry for me. I'm more than up for it." He turned his head to smile at Mitchell and by the excited sparkles in those blue eyes; the brunet sensed that the night wouldn't be boring at all. Apparently, all ambition of staying clean had left Mitchell's mind for good and he felt a wild thrill being born in his own guts.

A few minutes later, Mitchell was already dressed and waiting for the Kiwi who had still only his trousers on and was looking down at his phone he had just turned on. Mitchell tried not to think about Anders' girlfriend who was still waiting for his news while her boyfriend was banging another man in a hotel room on the other side of the planet. Mitchell was jealous and he hated it. At the same time, he felt a vicious complacency knowing that for three days, he had made Anders forget about that girl. Mitchell had noticed with satisfaction that the blond hadn't tried to call her even once. But now he was frustrated to see that she had come back into his mind. " _Since when did you become such an asshole?"_ his own conscience asked Mitchell but he made it shut up and locked it up somewhere in a dark nook of his mind.

 "They just gave us one key for the room, maybe it would be a good thing if we asked for another before going out, so we would both have one," the blond pointed out, still looking at his phone. "Would you be kind enough to go ask for it at the front desk while I finish getting ready, please?" he asked Mitchell.

"Sure," the brunet replied with a forced smile, "I'll be back in a minute," he added as he passed by and planted a kiss on the nape of the PR's neck before leaving the room.

 

***

 

If she wasn't already dead, Dawn would probably have had a heart attack when she heard the phone ringing on Anders' desk.

 She had waited to hear that sound for so long that she was paralyzed for a second, convinced she was imagining it. When she realized she wasn't, she threw herself through the office to answer the call. She took the phone from the desk without any problem, since three days, her poltergeist skills seemed to have come back to their initial level three.

"How's my little sunshine? " beamed a familiar man voice at the other end of the line. The voice was a little too cheerful and carefree for her liking.

"ANDREW JOHNSON ! YOU'RE A BIG BLOODY IDIOT !!! Do you have any idea how worried I was !!!!????? Where the hell are you !!??"

"I'm in a hotel downtown Dublin since a few days now," he explained, always his laid-back self.  

"WHAT !?! THAT'S ALL ?," she roared, "SO YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A GOOD REASON TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU DIDN'T ANSWER ANY OF MY CALLS !!??"

"I'm sorry darling, I know I should have called sooner," he apologized." But I'm sure the pretty Dawnsie will forgive her boss because she loves him a lot, huh?"

She could hear the smug grin in his voice.

"Right now she wants to throttle him, pour gas on his body and set fire to it," she groaned.

Anders chuckled. He knew he wasn't completely forgiven but this was a start. "I'm glad to know you miss me that much," he replied, the smug grin refusing to leave his lips.  

"Of course I miss you, you moron," she bellowed, "but I'm sure that you aren't telling me everything…" She couldn't believe that her boss had forgotten to call her or ignored her on purpose. There was something going on, she could swear it on her own grave.

The vampire clenched his teeth. He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to tell Dawn. He didn't want to worry her more than she already was, but his desire to be honest was stronger.  She deserved to know at least a part of the reason why he hadn't given her news. "I got hurt in a fight with other vampires a few days ago."

"Really!?," she gasped, "oh my god, Andy, are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine now, don't worry."

"I didn't know that," Dawn breathed, "I'm sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn't have."

"No, it's okay. I deserved it a little," he smiled softly.   

Anders knew Mitchell could come back any minute now. "I got to go, Dawnsie. I still have things to get done here in Dublin but I promise that soon I'm going to get back to New Zealand to arrange things for our relocation to London."

"I may not have the patience to wait here alone if you stay away longer and you keep on not giving me any news," she scolded.

"Please. I know you're a strong woman and all, I know you don't need me and you can manage to get here by yourself, but wait for me. I can't lose you, Dawn. I don't want to take any chance that it happens," he told her.

She held back her tears. It wasn't a surprise because she always knew he felt that way, but never before he would have expressed it out loud.  He had changed. Something had changed him.

"I can't promise anything," she stated.

"We're going to be together again very soon, sweetheart, I promise. I miss you. Bye Dawn," he hastened to say as he heard the door handle.

When he turned around, Mitchell was in the doorframe, the spare key between his thumb and forefinger. "You should've told me that you wanted to make a private phone call. You didn't have to send me away on a bogus pretext."

"It wasn't a bogus pretext since we might need this key in case for a reason or another we are separated during the hunt," Anders argued, putting the phone in his suit pocket and stepping toward Mitchell. The blond undid a few of Mitchell's shirt buttons and leant down to place two kisses at the base of the brunet's throat. "Are you mad at me?" the PR asked with a honeyed voice when he noticed Mitchell's absence of reactions.

Mitchell's long arms circled the waist of the smaller man. "No, I'm not mad at you," he sighed loudly, "but I don't think we need this spare key because I'm going to keep a close eye on you all night. You aren't completely healed and you seem to have the annoying habit to put yourself in trouble, so I'll stay close by."

"I don't need a babysitter or a nurse," Anders grunted though he didn't try to break the embrace, "I'm not just a well-hung warlord, you know.  I'm also an apex predator and I'm going to prove it to you."

"I look forward to it," Mitchell grinned.  

***

 

As soon as Dawn hung up the phone, the feeling of emptiness came back immediately. Even if she had regained her poltergeist energy, the separation was more and more difficult to bear every day and somehow, hearing Anders' voice had made it even harder.  Being a guardian ghost wasn't always great, it was almost as if the one you were protecting was a kind of drug you were addicted to.  If you lost your protégé, you lost at the same time the purpose of your whole existence. That was exactly how Dawn was feeling: purposeless.

She was tired of pretending to study files at the office or to spend her nights at Anders apartment, lying on his bed, staring blankly at the wall and hugging one of the suit jackets he had left behind.

There was also the fact that she just couldn't get rid of the feeling that, without lying to her, her boss wasn't exactly telling her all the truth. Something was not right. When she was alive, she had a pretty good intuition, now that she was dead; it was even more accurate, especially when it was about Anders. She had the feeling he was about to betray someone, or someone was about to betray him… it wasn't clear, but either way, he was going to suffer and Dawn couldn't let that happen.  For now though, there was nothing she could do and it was driving her crazy.

She had to take fresh air. Well, she couldn't exactly breathe but it didn't matter. She had to at least leave the office where everything she laid her eyes on was reminding her of Anders. Dawn wouldn't come back to the penthouse tonight either so she wrote a little sticky note she put on the office's door, asking Olaf if he could feed the fish while she was away.

She passed through the front door of the office but once she was on the street, any desire of walking away left her. She sat on the sidewalk and hid her face in her hands. She had never been a very faithful person but now that she was a kind of angel, maybe she had a special connection with whoever was ruling over the clouds. "Please," she prayed, "protect him while I can't."

A black car slowed down on the street just in front of her but she didn't pay attention to it at first, humans were not able to see her anyway. But when someone stepped out of the car and a feminine voice said "good morning, you must be Dawn," she jumped and lifted a surprised gaze. In front of her was a vampire woman with really long curly nut brown hair, a blue t-shirt and a short black skirt.

"Yes, it's me," Dawn replied, on guard. She didn't know that woman. Maybe she was one of her boss' conquests but she doubted it. "What can I do for you?" Dawn asked, standing up slowly.

"It's more about what I can do for you," the brunette answered.

"And what can you do for me?"

"You are Mr. Johnson's associate so I guess you have his greater good at heart. You need to know that he is currently under the influence of a very dangerous man who plans to use him."  

Dawn stiffened. It was all her worst fears coming to life, but she was still suspicious. "Who's that man and how do you know about it? Who sent you?"

"I'm only the messenger," the woman replied, "I've been paid to tell you that and bring you to the airport. There is an airplane leaving in fifty minutes and you should be in it if you want to be able to save your boss."

Dawn stayed still. This story was so fishy. "I should phone him and warn him right away, then."

"You would be taking the risk of putting him in danger even more and you would miss the plane," the female vampire stated. She stepped back to her car and opened the back door: "shall we?"

The ghost hesitated. She didn't trust that woman at all, but at the same time, what she had told her was matching her own intuitions. On the other side, even if she ended up in front of a bunch of vengeful vampires, Dawn was already dead so they couldn't do much to her. And if the people who were pretending to want to help Anders were actually the villains, Dawn would be able to discover it and warn him before he fell in the trap. Anyway, she couldn't just stay there with her arms crossed.

She nodded and got into the car. The ride to the airport was quick. The vampire dropped her in front of the main door and gave her a paper sheet with her itinerary.

Dawn frowned when she saw her final destination. "You know that my boss isn't in Bristol, right?"

"Not yet, but he will be very soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and please, let me know what you think in the little white box just under this text block. ;)


	10. Through the Steam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's been forever since I updated that fic, but I'm going to write it and finish it, slowly but surely. 
> 
> Thanks to those who stayed in tune and I hope you forgive me for the wait. 
> 
> This story is gifted to Katyushha, who is also my beta for this story and my dear friend. <3
> 
> ADDITIONAL WARNING - attempted sexual assault

 

Leaving the hotel and actually taking the pulse of the world outside made Mitchell realize that the earth had kept rotating while he and Anders were plunged in sexual oblivion. The wet streets of Dublin were the only reminders of the snowstorm.

Mitchell and Anders were determined to do things properly this time and get a permission to hunt in the neighborhood. They didn't want to get through another mess like the one they had had to face in Dundalk.

Fortunately, the doorman of the first nightclub the two vampires passed by was one of their kind. The burly vampire named  Darren showed a friendly interest in their quest for feeding. He seemed especially drawn to Anders and he even accepted to talk to them at the door of the club since it was early and there were not many customers. Darren didn't seem to be able to tear his gaze from Anders, giving the smaller man a smile that reminded Mitchell from the cat in Alice in Wonderland.  The brunet didn't like it much.

As the conversation went on, Mitchell circled the Kiwi's waist and pulled him to his side in a possessive gesture. He planted a quick kiss in blond hair, just in case it wasn't obvious enough that they were mating partners. "My baby here is thirsty and I can’t let such a beautiful creature starve, don't you think?" Mitchell told the doorman.  

"Indeed," Darren agreed, not even trying to pretend he wasn't ogling the Kiwi.

Anders ignored both the doorman checking him out and Mitchell's demonstration of possessiveness. He was hungry, and therefore, the only thing that interested him was to find a human prey. He obviously wasn't interested in being the center of a rivalry triangle. "Are you the only vampire in this area?" he questioned Darren. Mitchell was astonished how easily Anders could switch from the Kiwi accent to the Irish one.

"Nope, I’m not alone. We are three to hunt on the territory from Parnell street to the river. But don't worry, I know the other two and I can take care of informing them of your presence tonight. They won't bother you: they are my coupling mates as well as my venom-daughters," he explained. "You know what they say," he added with a wink, "the wine from the family crockery tastes better."

Mitchell stiffened. It was the sentence from his dream: the dream he had had while sleeping in Anders’ car when he was hurt. He must have heard that before to dream of it. From the context, he could guess the meaning, but he still asked Anders after Darren had wished them a good hunt and they were alone again.

"It's just an expression to say that it's easier and more enjoyable to have the closest members of your venom-line as mating partners. That's why you often see venom-parents with their venom-children or the vampires turned by the same parent together," Anders explained. "I heard this saying often among the Illyrians but I didn't know the Snows were using it as well," he commented.

Mitchell frowned as they resumed walking down the streets while searching for a hunting opportunity. If it was real that the "wine" tasted better when drunk from a member of your venom-family, it explained Herrick and Cara…. Though, when it came to himself, the mere idea of mating with Seth, Cara or Herrick was making Mitchell nauseous.

As they walked, the brunet gave a side glance to the other vampire. Anders' blood was more delicious than anything else he had ever drunk in his whole life… could it be possible that… Anders was his "brother"? No. It couldn't. Herrick had promised he wouldn't touch any of the other soldiers if Mitchell accepted to be turned. The blond must have been turned after the war by someone else. If Herrick had had another son after him, he would've known. He didn't dare ask Anders who his venom father was, because the Kiwi would surely return the question, and it wasn't the information Mitchell was proud to share. First of all because he was the responsible for Herrick's murder. Killing your own genitor was not exactly well-considered among vampires.  While vampires killing each other was part of everyday life, patricide and matricide were grave, treacherous crimes.

"They also say that when your venom-children drink from you, it gives you a power over them, a kind of control," Anders went on. " I know a chick back in Auckland: her venom-father is also her mate. She hates him, he is a total wanker, but it's like she can't leave him.  So that theory is probably true, though I never had the occasion to test it with my own daughters." He didn't elaborate further on the subject, but it gave Mitchell plenty of food for thoughts.

When he was still a freshly turned vampire, on an occasion of two, Herrick did try to bring him to bed, but Mitchell had resisted. The idea of tasting Herrick's blood had always repulsed him. Though,  the story of that chick from Auckland reminded him of his own relationship with his venom father- this feeling of dependency. He also remembered when he had started coupling with Lauren. It was like his blood was a drug she couldn't resist. The more they mated, the more she was following him everywhere, begging him to sleep with her once more.

"Do you have many venom-children still alive?" Mitchell questioned Anders, intrigued.

After a short silence and a wary side-glance, the Kiwi chose to answer. "Three daughters. But we are not close. I don't keep their photo in my wallet," he snorted. "You?"

"A woman and a young boy," Mitchell replied. When he saw Anders raise an eyebrow, he hastened to specify that Bernie had been hit by a car and that he had turned him to save his life.  

As they made their way toward a more frequented street, trying to identify a potential prey while making sure to look like two innocent walkers, Anders broke the silence to ask him: "I heard Annie say that you are living in Bristol."

Mitchell frowned, wondering why it interested Anders. "Er, yes. Why?"

"Bristol: it's like the capital of the Snow line vampires. There are some celebrities living in that city," Anders pointed out, with a casualness that seemed feigned to Mitchell whose senses were immediately alerted. "Like William Herrick and Big Bad John," Anders added. The Irishman's heart made a panicked leap. He had been stupid to think that the tale of his exploits hadn't reached the world of Illyrian vampires.

"Oh… them…" he breathed, avoiding to look into Anders' direction.

"Have you ever met them?"  the blond insisted.

 _'TELL A LIE!!!'_  Mitchell's intuition screamed. He didn't want Anders to know who he was – who he had been. Big bad John wasn't him anymore. Just like Herrick: this person was dead and buried. He cleared his throat and took his most convincing tone. "I saw them once or twice. They are not that impressive, if you ask me. And I prefer to stay as far as possible from the powerbrokers and their business. It's safer." He risked a glimpse at his coupling partner who simply nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer. Mitchell heaved an inner sigh of relief.

The Kiwi suddenly grabbed his wrist and stopped, tearing him out of his musings. As they walked they had reached a rather busy part of Darren's hunting territory. There were people everywhere, most of them waiting in line to get into the pubs, bars and nightclubs. Striding on every sidewalk: groups of drunken girls and giggling couples.  

Mitchell didn't know what had attracted the other vampire's attention for him to stop so abruptly. He searched the blue eyes for an explanation and noticed they had darkened. Anders had picked up a scent.  

"Kiss me," the blond ordered in an urgent whisper, drawing Mitchell closer.

The brunet didn't ask questions. The Kiwi had already closed his eyes so Mitchell imitated him as he leant down and tilted his head to seal his mouth to Anders'. He liked kissing his mate and he instantly wanted more. As he deepened the kiss, he explored the sweet cavity with his tongue and found fully raised fangs inside Anders' mouth.  He understood that the kiss was a device for Anders to be able to vamp out without being noticed by the humans around. All they would see would be two guys kissing, which would not be unusual in this part of the district. He felt the familiar itch as his own eyes turned black under his eyelids. By instinct, feeling Anders' fangs under his tongue prompted Mitchell to make his descend as well. That's when he picked up the scent that had made Anders stop. It was unmistakable – the rancid smell of fear. Someone, somewhere, was scared… terrified more likely. Vampires were good at detecting that scent: the one of vulnerability.

Mitchell knew the blond was trying to locate the source as he kept on devouring his mouth. The brunet was trying to do the same; even if the kiss and his mating partner's body pressed to his were rather distracting. Anders pulled back slightly and murmured, his lips still against Mitchell's: "human male, late teens, three hundred meters from here to the north-east." Without warning he stepped back and made his way between cars and people and away from Mitchell. Anders had taken the lead of the hunt and the brunet had no choice but to follow. He had no time now to ponder over the consequences of the respective roles they had naturally taken and what this hunting dynamic could imply for both of them. He kept his eyes focused on the blond vampire walking in front of him. He didn't want to lose him in the crowd. Not that he was afraid of not being able to find him – his mate was giving out a scent Mitchell could trace within five kilometers around. He just felt protective of the smaller vampire.

Mitchell followed him around the block and they jogged down a dark alley between two buildings.

In normal circumstances, guilt would goad Mitchell, telling him that what he was doing was wrong, that he was supposed to have given up drinking blood. But normal circumstances had ceased to be a thing as soon as he had laid his eyes on Anders.  There was only one thing on his mind: his partner's well being. The Kiwi had been hurt with two gunshots, Mitchell had taken the bullets out of Anders' shoulder and leg and helped him heal with his own blood, but he knew Anders would soon get worse if he didn't drink human hemoglobin. Mitchell had to feed his male and the human victim was a negligible data in the equation.

The pungent smell was getting more pronounced as the two vampires approached their quarry. Mitchell felt the cocktail of his and Anders' venom run through his veins and his muscles, making him stronger than he ever felt. The Kiwi climbed on the top of a high brick wall – silent and effortless like a feline. Mitchell followed him with the same agility: marveling at the capacities he didn't even know he possessed. Only two minutes passed since Anders had first caught the smell.

They progressed on the rooftops until they heard an angry voice. The blond vampire crouched in the shadows of a chimney and Mitchell joined him to observe what was going on down in the alleyway.

A tall, bald man was threatening a young-looking one with a knife, pinning him to a frost fence with a hand fisted in the collar of the boy's jacket. "Where is my money!?" he spat. "You already owe me three hundred, you little fucker. You thought I was too stupid to remember? I said I would skin you if you didn't pay me back."

"I told you. I'm… I’m going to get your cash. Tomorrow, I'll have it, I promise," the kid pleaded.

"It's too late, you already got your fair share of warnings." The bald man put his blade to the boy's throat and seemed to hesitate.  "Or maybe I can repay myself another way." He turned the younger man around and pushed him face-first against the fence, his pocket knife pressed to the back of the kid's neck.  He undid his belt with his free hand. "I bet you'll even like it, little slut."

The vampires exchanged a glance and the brunet understood Anders was asking him to stay there and wait. He obeyed.

Silently, Anders left Mitchell's side to climb down the roof.  The taller vampire didn't quit his observation post as the aggressor was trying to divest the poor struggling boy of his pants. The brunet's gaze was following Anders' progress toward the two men.

The blond walked toward the two humans on the opposite side of the fence in a slow, calculated approach, until he was facing the bald man.   Mitchell could hear the young one sob, his face pressed in the grating and convinced he was going to be raped any second,.

"Good night," Anders said in the casual tone of someone who greets a neighbor. The criminal jumped. He hadn't noticed Anders’ presence before he spoke up.

"Mind your own business and fuck off!" the aggressor roared.

"Oh, I don't think that will happen," Anders replied with an insolent, toothy smile.

The bald man grabbed the boy, made him turn around once more in order to press the blade to his throat. "If you make a move to take your phone and call the police, I kill the kid."

"Oh don't worry, I won't call the police," Anders said, picking on his nails. "What you should be worried about is _this_." At the last word, his eyes turned pitch black and he hissed at the man through the fence, showing his fangs.

The bald man had a hiccup of surprise. He stepped back and dropped his knife. The boy, who had not seen Anders vamp out, his back being turned to the vampire, took that unexpected opportunity to flee.

"What kind of freak are you!?" the criminal stuttered, stepping back some more.

"I'm the last thing you're going to see," Anders smirked before climbing the fence with a remarkable skill.

The bald man decided he was not brave anymore and he ran away before Anders jumped his side of the fence. Anders stood there and watched him run, knowing the poor sod would not be able to go very far.  Mitchell had anticipated the prey's escape attempt and he had moved on the roof down the alley.  He jumped in front of the thug, intercepting him before he could reach the street.

His eyes pitch black, he scowled at the man "Tsk tsk tsk, you're already leaving the party? We’ve just started having fun," Mitchell smirked. "haven’t we, babe?"  he asked Anders who was approaching from behind. Fully vamped out and panting, the blond didn't replied, his full attention focused on the quarry.

In all honesty, Mitchell didn't see the punch coming. Usually, at that stage, the prey was too terrified to try to defend themselves. This one had been bold enough to hit Mitchell hard in the jaw with an uppercut. A flash of pain crossed the brunet's head and his vision turned white for a second. A second too many because the man shoved his shoulder as he ran past him and turned into another alleyway to his right.

They couldn't let him get away. Not after they had put up their little supernatural show for him.

Ignoring the pain, Mitchell started chasing him immediately; making sure Anders was following him. He expected his mating partner to be angry at him for having let the prey escape like an amateur, but, instead, as they ran, he heard Anders hissing – low and concerned. The hiss could be roughly translated as ' _hurt? Me = worried_.'   Mitchell snarled back: ' _Slight pain. Shame. Anger. Thirst._ ' Vampire language didn't allow to lie, just to express raw feelings and urges.

As they arrived at the point where the alleyway was separating into two directions, Mitchell’s sense of smell told him that the prey had taken the left one. Anders took the other direction and the brunet understood his mate was trying to find a way to corner their quarry, or, at least, to reduce its options of slipping away.

Mitchell had never experienced it before with any other hunting partner.  It was like he was able to understand and anticipate Anders' intentions even when he didn't have the other vampire in his immediate field of sight. He constantly felt that strong link connecting him to Anders, like some kind of telepathy but in a more instinctive level than actual mind-reading. Surely this had something to do with the fact they had coupled for three days in a row- exchanging an exaggerated amount of blood and venom.

Mitchell ran until he got to the bottom of the alleyway where the bald man was waiting for him. It was a dead end and the criminal was trapped there. There was no exit possible for him.

The brunet smirked. The punch had unleashed Mitchell's rage, making him impulsive. Ready to slice the guy's throat, he didn't wait another second and launched fangs out at the man.  It was too late when he saw the sharp broken mirror piece the man pointed at him as he braced himself.

The improvised weapon tore up Mitchell's shirt but it didn't have time to cut his flesh. A blond beast arose from god knew where and knocked the bald man to the ground. Anders straddled the thug's chest and with a well-placed shot of the side of his hand, he crushed the man's larynx. The man choke and after a couple panicked spasms, he stopped moving for good.

Once he made sure the prey was dead, Anders stood up, still vamped out. He stepped back from the body and his mesmerizing black eyes stared at a still speechless Mitchell.

The brunet understood at once that the older vampire was offering him the first sip.

If Mitchell accepted to feed first on the prey his partner had killed, it would signify to Anders that he accepted him as the apex hunter of their couple – the dominant male.  If the Irishman drank first, like the blond was offering him, that meant that from now on, Anders would be the leader of their hunts and Mitchell his follower. Mitchell would have the role of the chaser: the one that exhausts the prey beforehand and Anders would assume the one of the killer. It was a dynamic that once it is accepted in a mutual agreement between two vampires, it couldn't be changed as long as they stayed together. Most coupling partners who also hunted together didn't have an apex and a follower, because neither of them wanted to give up the dominant role. But couples where the partners gladly put their egos aside and accepted to separate the tasks were the most redoubtable and efficient ones.  Besides, nobody would ever mock another vampire for being the submissive part of a hunting couple. First of all, because those kinds of couples were well-working killing machines, and also because mocking a following vampire meant that you still had only a few seconds to live before his apex destroyed you on the spot.

 Since the beginning of the tracking, Mitchell had noticed Anders was a natural at leading a hunt. Never, during his century of life, had Mitchell accepted to be the follower of an apex male or female, but, with Anders, his instincts told him it was the logical and right thing to do.

He looked at the dead prey as Anders, despite his thirst, was giving him all the time he needed to make a decision. Mitchell also knew that later, when they would go back to their hotel room, he would have to submit to Anders and give him his body and his blood to seal their new positions. He could feel his body respond with enthusiasm to the thought. For the first time in his life, the idea of submission didn't make him disdainful but mad with desire.

He had a choice, he could refuse to drink first, but without further pondering, he kneeled on the ground next to the corpse and sank his fangs into the dead man's neck, sighing with pleasure as the still warm blood flowed down his dry throat. He still took the precaution to stop before getting drunk.

Once his thirst was quenched, he stood up, licked his lips, retracted his fangs and walked to Anders who was waiting for his turn. "Get a taste, my beauty," Mitchell told his mate before putting his arms around him and kissing him hard and opening up right away so the blond could taste the human blood in his tongue. Anders uttered a hungry groan and he pushed Mitchell back until he got him pinned to the nearest wall to the nearest wall. They parted long enough for Anders to let out a hoarse whisper, "you accepted my gift. Therefore, you are mine."

"I'm yours," Mitchell confirmed, whimpering as he felt Anders' erection pressed to the front of his thigh. "You can claim me."

Anders groaned and pressed his mate to the wall with his whole body, licking the inside of Mitchell's mouth like he already owned him.

Anders left the Irishman's abused lips in order to kiss him on the neck. The blond scraped the skin with his fangs gently to make the brunet shiver and buck his hips forward. "Let me take my share of our prey, and afterward, your apex male is going to take care of you, my sweet treat," the Kiwi whispered into Mitchell's ear. "I'm afraid you won't be able to walk for a little while once I'm done with you," he added in a dark chuckle.

The prospect sent a shot of pure lust to Mitchell's lower body and he felt the venom leaking from his retracted fangs into his mouth as his eyes turned black once more.  "Bring it on, baby boy. You know I'm waiting for it." Mitchell didn't remember having ever been so worked up and turned on.  He would gladly let his partner take his claim right now, against that brick wall, but the idea of destroying the mattress of a hotel room bed with Anders was an even more appealing one.

"Hold on, darling," Anders teased with a wink when Mitchell let go of him, "I'm just gonna take a sip while the meal is still warm." He walked to the body and he loosened up his tie before leaning down and biting down into the wound Mitchell's fangs had already pierced into the man's neck.

Mitchell liked to see Anders feed. First of all because the vampire part of him was naturally aroused by seeing one of his congeners drink blood, and also because, as Anders' mate, it was giving him the satisfaction of a good hunt and of having a well-fed partner.

He still turned his gaze away from the enticing show. He walked a few meters toward the street, guarding the alley while Anders finished drinking and removed the evidence of their bites on the body with the tip of his retractable stake.

When Mitchell turned around a few minutes later, Anders had disappeared. "Anders!?" Mitchell whispered-shouted, incredulous. No reply.  He tried again with the same result. He looked around, but there was no sign of the blond vampire.

He went back to the corpse and noticed a piece of paper on the middle of the man's chest. Mitchell grabbed it and read the five words written on it. " _Catch me if you can."_ He knew the message was addressed to him.

"Oh, you little shit," Mitchell whispered with a mix of exasperation and thrill. He shoved the paper into his back pocket and lifting his chin to try to catch the blond's scent. If his male wanted to play, he would play along. Anders was already a hundred meters or so ahead of him and Mitchell had to hurry if he wanted to catch up.

Anders' scent trail brought Mitchell back to the busy street with all the clubs. All the human scents suddenly made it more difficult for the brunet to distinguish the one of his partner amidst all the meals on legs walking around. The distraction created by all the warm beating hearts was less pronounced now that he was sated. On the other side, the feeding had sharpened his senses, making the odour mix overwhelming and confusing, like the forms in a cubist painting.  Everybody had their own olfactory signal they left behind, like ribbons of different colors and Mitchell had to follow Anders' one that he imagined to be red, for a reason he couldn't exactly explain. He didn't let go of the red ribbon, forcing himself not to be disturbed by all the other ones crossing his path.  It led him to the door of a crowded nightclub. What is Anders doing in there? he worried, slightly annoyed.  If Anders was planning to kill again and get drunk on blood tonight, Mitchell had to stop him before it would be too late. The chase was exciting, but he didn't want to have to hide another body tonight.

The doorman eyed him, unsure, but still stepped aside to let him in.

The loud music hit Mitchell like a truck and the smoke hurt his sensitive eyes, blinding him for a few seconds. He had to scan the dancefloor three times before catching a sight of his mate.

Anders was dancing with a blue-haired girl who had her behind suggestively pressed against the vampire's front. He held her close, the fingers of his right hand sprawled on her stomach. Mitchell's hands balled into angry fists when he saw Anders leaning forward to say something into the girl's ear and nuzzling her neck from behind as she tilted her head to give him a better access.  

"You already drank, you greedy little bat," Mitchell grunted under his breath.  

Anders was playing with fire. In fact he was playing Mitchell like a puppet. Mitchell knew Anders wasn't really planning on biting the girl. In this crowd, it would be suicidal.  It was just a jest to make him jealous, to drive him mad, and it was working far too well. The younger vampire tried to cross the compact wall of dancers and approach his partner without being seen by him, because he knew that if the blond noticed him, he would run away. But it was too late. Between two heads, their gazes met. Anders' eyes darkened and a smirk stretched his lips. A heartbeat later, the blue-haired girl was left alone and dumbfounded. Anders had disappeared from Mitchell's sight. He only had the time to see him slip outside by the club's backdoor. The Irishman shoved a couple dancers away without a look back as he made his way to that door as quickly as possible.

Of course, when he stepped outside, Anders had already left the place. Mitchell summoned the beast in him and his nostrils flared as he inhaled the night breeze once more. He was confused for a moment.  It was like his male's scent path was going in every direction at once. He froze as a deep feeling of helplessness seized him. He started to panic like a kid in a supermarket who can't find his mother anymore.

It took him a few seconds to understand what was going on. He made a few steps forward and searched the ground until he could see them, as clear as in the daylight: fresh droplets of blood on the asphalt – Anders' blood. He had a lecherous smile. Now that he had found the blood drops, he only had to follow the road they were tracing for him. Anders had just upgraded the game, implying that Mitchell would find physical pleasure at the end of the path. Humans scattering red rose petals to lead their lover to a bed or a bathtub didn't know they hadn't invented anything and that they were, in fact, recreating a typical vampire mating ritual.

He followed the blood drops back to the front of their hotel. Of course, he could guess he would end up back here anyway, but he wanted to indulge his new apex's playful mood.

Fortunately,  the smaller vampire had been wise enough not to leave blood in the hotel,  but even before the elevator's doors opened, Mitchell knew his partner was already back  in their room.

"You are slow," Anders teased him, grabbing him by the collar and pushing him against the nearest wall as soon as Mitchell walked in and closed the door behind him.

"I would apologize for making you wait, but I won't since this is your entire fault," Mitchell pointed out, he grabbed Anders' tie and pulled him forward into a deep kiss. Then, he took the Kiwi's wrist and lifted his sleeve to uncover the forearm Anders had bitten to leave the blood drops for Mitchell to follow.

"Do I deserve a good spanking?" Anders simpered, still heaving a long, content sigh when Mitchell licked his wound.

"If you don't stop teasing me, I tie you up and have it my way."

Anders looked touched, in his very own wicked way. "Are you threatening me?" he asked, like he found the idea of Mitchell threatening him especially cute.

"Maybe,"  Mitchell growled, but there was more desire than anger in that growl.

"Go on! I like it!" the blond vampire smirked.  "It makes me all hot. But I won't let you have your way with me, I'm sorry. It would be messing with the natural order, and according to it, you are mine to fuck. "

Mitchell let go of Anders' arm in order to lean forward and press an open-mouthed kiss into the crook of his neck. "Then you should shut up and fuck me already. Don't make me wait a second more,"  the Irishman insisted, half-pleading, half-moaning.

These were the last things that had been spoken between them before Anders vamped out and tossed his coupling mate onto the bed like he weighed nothing, but it was fine since Mitchell didn't want delicacy: he wanted Anders - the strength of his compact body submitting him, his fingers digging into his muscles, his fangs sinking into his flesh.

They clawed at each other's clothes, tearing them to shreds.

As soon as he got the blond naked, Mitchell took the opportunity of a fleeting moment of inattention from the smaller man to immobilize him on the mattress.  He had to maintain Anders still on the bed, with a hand firmly pressed to the middle of his chest. He knew that Anders' sole obsession was claiming him, but Mitchell had other plans for him and he was dying to taste his lover.  Anders stopped struggling to get the upper hand when the brunet licked a hot stripe along his hard shaft and closed his lips around it.  Mitchell let out a soft hissing sigh of victory when he felt his male tensing and melting all at once under his ministrations, his spine arching from pleasure.  He knew he wouldn't be able to restrain his lover for long. Indeed, he had to release him when he felt Anders' hands close around his wrists in vice-like grips. He brought Mitchell up and closer.

"What you are doing down there with your soft, dirty lips feels very good," Anders told him,  "but we both know it's not what I really want and it's not what you need."

Mitchell nodded, sheepish. Anders was right.  This was not what all his body was begging for, louder and louder with every second that passed. Maybe he was unconsciously trying to delay the real action as long as possible. He was afraid – not of the coupling itself. He trusted Anders. What made him afraid was the prospect that the sensation of having his lover inside him would get him addicted. He knew it would.

Anders' eyes, like black holes, were pulling all of Mitchell's thoughts into them with their unsustainable gravity attraction, destroying any hint of resistance.

"What do you need?" the blond demanded in a husky whisper, not letting go of Mitchell's wrists and his face an inch apart from the Irishman's.

Mitchell made his fangs descend and let out a lusty growl.

"No. Say it with words. I want to hear you say it for me," Anders insisted, rolling on top of the other vampire.

"I need to be fucked."

"How?"

"Hard… deep," Mitchell panted, his body temperature climbing a dozen degrees at once. Jeezus. This man was driving him out of his mind.

His lover raised an eyebrow. "That's all?" he pressed him.

"I want… to… be bitten."

"Of course you do. But tell me, this bite, does it have to be also hard and deep?"

"Yes, yes please."

"That's my boy."  Anders spread his partner's legs. "Come on. Be a good babe and show me that delicate neck of yours."

Mitchell didn't hesitate to obey, lifting his chin to offer his throat and neck. He had never felt so vulnerable, but this precise kind of willing vulnerability was something incredibly arousing.

Anders kissed and licked the side of Mitchell's neck, his fangs grazing the skin and the venom penetrating in the pores, desensitizing the site of biting a little. Mitchell laced his fingers with Anders' and squeezed. The flash of sharp pain made him cry out, but Anders was making it right – sinking his fangs directly into Mitchell's carotid, injecting his venom where it would spread in the brunet's body in warm, soothing waves and faster than from any other kind of bite. Mitchell let out a long moan as Anders sucked hard on the wound, drinking his blood, his fangs still inside of his neck to inject as much venom as possible. The sedative effect made the Irishman both euphoric and relaxed. An apex vampire’s claiming of his partner was never gentle. That's why the venom was important to relax him enough so he wouldn't get hurt.

Anders was still licking and sucking out his blood from the wound on his neck when Mitchell felt the saliva-coated cock sink into him. Anders was thick and Mitchell's groan came from the depth of his throat. It would sound like a threatening sound for someone not accustomed to vampires' communication ways, but the Kiwi was well-aware that it was an encouragement and a plea for more. The effect of his venom had made Mitchell's body nicely welcoming for the blond vampire who seemed already drunk on the sensation as he slammed all the way inside with one powerful thrust of hip.  He left the brunet's neck long enough to let a possessive growl escape from the depth of his throat. Then, he proceeded to give Mitchell the hard, shameless pounding he was craving for as he leant down to bite again.

The mattress, the bed frame and even the floor protested in a series of cracking noises. Mitchell, on the other side, couldn't complain.  Feeling so intimately penetrated by both Anders' fangs and cock was close to his definition of a vampiric heaven.  His fists clenched into the bed sheets. He wasn't allowed to bite Anders until the blond would decide he was done drinking from him. His head was spinning from the blood loss but it was contributing to the erotic sensation, making him feel in an elated daze. The smaller vampire was making those pleased whimpers into the crook of his neck as he fucked him with abandon and Mitchell wanted to let him take all the blood he fancied. Having been invigorated by human blood the same night, he could give a lot of his own to Anders.

It was barely too much. The blond had an extraordinary strength and stamina, and even the vampire in Mitchell wasn't sure if he was able to take it anymore. It was too good and too intense at the same time. He wanted to struggle and get away from the bed, just a few seconds, just to give his body the time to recover. But he would not ask Anders to stop, because he didn't want it to end. Instead of pushing his male away, he managed to retract his fangs to beg, his voice rough, "More, harder!"

The brunet moaned at the loss when he felt Anders' fangs leaving their place in his flesh. The Kiwi looked at him, eyes black and blood smeared on his chin. He kissed Mitchell hard and pushed the taller vampire's legs up against his chest to change the angle. The flash of burning pleasure that shot across his body made Mitchell scream. If he wasn't already so far gone, he would be terrified from the amount of pleasure he was experiencing. If Anders kept on fucking him that way, he would surely die. If an excess of pleasure could be lethal, he would not survive any longer.

He felt Anders close his fingers around his member and it didn't take him more to cry out as he came, his delight tenfold by Anders resting his forehead on his as he accompanied him through release.

The blond vampire buried his face into Mitchell's hair with a sated moan, clearly not in a hurry to slip out of the brunet's warm body. Mitchell didn't mind still having his partner between his parted legs and he circled Anders' waist to hold him into his arms. The longer he could keep his mate skin on skin with him, the happier he would be. After they exchanged a few exhausted kisses, Anders still had to leave the bed in order to fetch washcloths from the bathroom so they could both clean up.  "Let me," Anders insisted when Mitchell reached to take one from his lover's hand. He cleaned the younger vampire's stomach and neck in silence and when he went back to the bathroom, Mitchell rolled onto his stomach and relaxed on the mattress, already sleepy. He would definitely need rest after such a night. He closed his eyes for a few minutes and when he opened them, he noticed Anders leaning against the bathroom's door frame and observing him. The Irishman smiled at his lover.

Returning the smile, the other vampire walked up to the bed and slipped between the covers and snuggled to his coupling partner. "Don't feel too flattered," Anders warned him," but it's the first time I have sex with someone and that it feels so… so…"

Mitchell kissed his shoulder with a lazy grin. "Hm. It's too late. I'm already flattered." The path of kisses led the Irishman from the shoulder to the other man's neck.

"Do you want to bite me?" the blond offered.

"Nah, I'm fine," Mitchell declined the offer. He felt boneless and a bit of Anders' blood would surely help, but he liked his current state as it was:  numb but content. "I had a very nice night. Thank you, Anders," he whispered against soft skin.

"It was not a very restaurant-and-movie kind of date," Anders winked when the dark-haired vampire pulled back to look at his face.

"Oh! Because it was a date, then!"

"NO!" Anders objected, suddenly blushing. "I meant that if it had been a date, which it really wasn't, it would have been a very weird one."

"Yes, yes…" Mitchell chuckled with a dismissive gesture. "I'm going to pretend you didn't take it back. I like the idea of it being a date."

Anders' expression was neutral as he stared back into the brown eyes. The silence stretched for a few minutes.

"Did you ever do this before? I mean, submit like that to another vampire," Anders questioned, propping himself up on his elbow. "Because I must say you didn't strike me as the submissive kind."

"That's true, I'm not," Mitchell conceded. "And it is indeed the first time I do that."

"Why with me?"

"Because I trust you," the Irishman stated, his gaze probing into the blue eyes. "I wasn't joking when I said that I would let you tie me up in a heartbeat."

"That makes me special I guess," Anders murmured, looking down.

"Yes. You are special," Mitchell replied, his palm stroking the side of his mate's neck. "My beautiful apex male," he breathed.

"That's me," the Kiwi smiled with a hint of pride

"Yes, that's you."

"You should sleep, you look worn out, " Anders pointed out, reaching to run his fingers through damp curls in a rare affectionate gesture.

"Hm, I wonder what exhausted me that much," Mitchell said with a tiny smile as he closed his eyes. "Good night, baby."

"Good night Mitchell."

 

***

Anders didn't sleep that night but stayed in the bed with his lover until the brink of dawn. The first lights of the new day reminded him of the woman who had gotten her name from the sunrise. Time had come for him to go back to her.

He left the warmth of the bedsheets and got dressed in silence. He went to the bathroom and turned the shower on, but he didn't wish to step under the hot water, only to buy time and make Mitchell think he was still in the room.

When he was ready to go, the blond vampire sat at the edge of the bed and watched the younger vampire sleep. Mitchell looked beautiful and innocent, like a sleeping child, his curls tracing loops on his forehead and his dark eyelashes fluttering on his cheeks.

Anders' resolution had been the same since Mitchell had got this stake in his heart when they were still in Dundalk. His plans had never changed. Once Mitchell would be healed, fed and in security, Anders would leave. He had already lost too much time in Ireland. He had to go back to New-Zealand and to Dawn. She needed him… and he needed her as well. But if the choice to leave was the good thing to do and the obvious path to take, why was it so difficult? He couldn't get back to his business, his quiet life and to Dawn and, at the same time, stay with Mitchell. Of course he'd like to keep his hunting partner around and have the opportunity to mate with him anytime he wanted, but he couldn't have both. It didn't work that way. Mitchell surely had a life of his own as well, and Anders always preferred ditching people before being dumped by them.

They had fun together… they had had something together Anders didn't even find the right words to describe. But all good things had to come to an end, and it was better to do it now than wait and take the risk it would be even more difficult later. He had already gotten attached to the younger male more than he had ever allowed himself to with any other of his congeners.

He reached a hand to caress Mitchell's cheek but withdrew it at the last second. Even if a part of him wanted to give the brunet a kiss or a last touch, he couldn't take the risk to wake him up.  Mitchell would feel hurt, angry probably, but Anders wanted to believe that he would soon forget about him.

He knew he was acting like a dick: leaving like that while Mitchell was still asleep. But he was a dick: always had been. Acting any different would be out of character.

Anders stood from the bed and fetched his suitcase and tiptoed to the door. If he stayed in the room a minute more, he risked changing his mind and slipping back into the bed with Mitchell. He gave the sleeping form a last look and closed the door behind him.

 

***

 

Mitchell thought he had heard the door closing. He cracked an eye open. The light coming in through the white curtains told him the new day had begun. The bed was empty but he could hear the sound of water dripping on the shower floor. He thought for a second to get up and join Anders in the shower but decided against it. He rolled onto his stomach and slumber invaded his brain once more.

_London, 1976._

_"I made you come here because I have to teach you an important lesson, John. I'm going to tell you a secret," Herrick announced, rolling down his left sleeve as Mitchell stepped into the hotel room. A dead girl was lying in an armchair next to him. Nothing unusual. "Take a seat and a drink, first," Mitchell's venom father added, pressing a glass of warm blood into the brunet's hand. The younger vampire was used to Herrick's histrionic declarations, so he sat down and drank, waiting for the outcome. Herrick took a piece of white fabric from the armrest.  It had probably been torn from the bed sheets and something had been traced on it with the prey's blood. "You see that?" Herrick asked his venom-son, holding the fabric for Mitchell to see._

_"It's an 'X'," the Irishman stated without hesitation._

_"No. It's not," Herrick objected. "It's the symbol that represents how immortality becomes invincibility."_

_Mitchell stared at the blood letter some more.  He frowned. As hard as he tried, he was not able to see anything else than an 'x'.  "How does it work?"_

_"It shows how two become one," the blond vampire explained, showing how the two superior lines, starting from two distinct points, met in a single one in the middle." And how that one creates two," he added, pointing out how, from the central point, two lines separated again._

_Mitchell tilted his head to the side, his eyes not leaving the red symbol. "What am I looking at, exactly?"_

_"A family tree."_

_"I don't understand."_

_Herrick had an indulgent smile. "You will, in time."_

***

 

Seated in his car, still in the parking of the Merrion Hotel, Anders had put his key in the SUV's ignition, but he was not able to start the engine. Something was keeping him from making the move. That "something", he knew exactly what it was, or rather "who" it was. That someone had a gorgeous, muscular body, silky olive skin and wild curls. Anders was having doubts and regrets . The separation was physically painful and he was already aching for Mitchell's blood. It would be so easy to just go back to the room and join his male in the bed like nothing happened. They could stay in Dublin for the rest of eternity; hunting, kissing and fucking, like the rest of the world didn't exist.  They were good together. Why spoil that?

 _'Because I have to!!'_ he scolded himself, shaking his head with frantic resistance, like someone who tries to wake up from a trance keeping them prisoner. He set his jaw in determination and turned the key, heaving a sigh of relief when the engine started purring. He drove to the exit of the parking garage. As soon as he was out in the exterior parking, vivid brown eyes appeared in his head: Mitchell's eyes, full of laughter, and then, feverish from desire, enraptured, begging for ravishment, silently asking Anders to do all kinds of sinful things. Anders shoved his feet on the brake pedal, bringing the car to a screeching halt. "Fuck, FUCK, FUUCK!" he cursed, slamming his palms on the steering wheel. He rubbed his face with both hands. He was not able to do that.

He closed his eyes. There had to be a solution. He had to get back to Auckland to organize the transfer of his society to London, but maybe Mitchell would like to accompany him to New Zealand, and then, who knew, maybe he would even like to visit him in London. He never wanted to consider it as an option until now, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed feasible. Of course, Mitchell didn’t have to agree, but something told Anders that he would.

Anders pulled the SUV to a corner of the parking where he would not cut the circulation and he took his phone out of his jacket as he stepped out of the car. He would give a call to Dawn, to inform her that he would soon be back with a friend, and then, he would go back to the room and wake his lover to tell him about his plans.

He called his office and leant back against his car's door while waiting for Dawn to pick up. After six ringtones, she still hadn't took the call and when he heard her voicemail, he hung up with a frown. This was odd. Dawn was always at the office. The only other place she could possibly be was at his penthouse. He dialled his landline number and pressed his phone to his ear again. It rang twice before someone picked up.

"Hullo?"

"Dawn!?"

"Do I sound like her?" asked a familiar male voice.

"Olaf!? What are you doing in my apartment?" Anders asked, confused. "If you throw a party with your junkie friends at my place I swear I'm going to…. Nevermind! Can you pass me Dawn please?"

"She's not here."

"What do you mean 'she is not here'?"

"She is gone," Olaf clarified. "I'm in your apartment because she left me a message telling me to take care of your fish. They don't eat bacon, do they?"

It was not possible. Dawn couldn't be just 'gone'. It was like Olaf had announced him the return of the dinosaurs or the shifting of the poles. "When did she leave!? Where did she go?" Anders panicked.

"I don't know!"

"Stay where you are!" Anders ordered the werewolf. "And call me immediately if you hear from her, okay?"

"Will do, boss."

Anders hung up and called his office again. Once more, he ended up with the voicemail. This time, he left a message: "Dawn! I know you are angry that I didn't give you news as often as I should have, but this is not funny. I'm very worried. Call me back if you get this message please. Don't do that to me. Don't disappear like that," he pleaded. His fingers were shaking when he hit the red button to end the call.

What was he going to do? He took a deep though useless breath. First of all: speak to Mitchell, then, try to reach Dawn again.

He walked to the street and was about to cross the door of the Merrion's lobby when he heard a voice calling him through the window of a black Cadillac parked in front of the hotel. "Mr. Andrew Johnson?"

The vampire stopped and turned around. He kept a straight face and walked a few steps toward the car as he studied the man who had called his name. An average Joe in a driver's uniform.

"Who's asking?" Anders inquired.

"I'm just the driver," the man replied. "Are you Andrew Johnson from Auckland, New-Zealand?" he repeated.

Anders took a step further and used his vampire senses to scan the individual:  human, cat owner, hungry for a few hours already, had a heart condition and hypoglycemia. He was also having an affair, judging by the two different kinds of women scents Anders detected on his clothes. His tendency to eat junk food on a daily basis was not making his blood very interesting to the blond vampire's trained nostrils.

As far as he knew, the guy said the truth. He was just the driver. Anders couldn't imagine him as an evil mastermind. "Yes…that's me," the Kiwi replied, still on guard.

"I'm glad I found you. I have this message for you," he replied, handing Anders a rectangle of paper, the size of a business card.

"From whom?" the vampire inquired, not moving to take it.

"The person who hired me and that I never met. Like I said, sir: I'm just the driver."

He waved  the piece of paper in Anders direction who reached to snatch it from between the man's fingers.

He felt his heart climbing up into his throat when he read the words on the card.

 

_Dawn is waiting for you._

 

 

"What do I have to do now that I read it?" he asked blankly.

""I have to drive you somewhere," the man declared, getting out of the car and opening the door for Anders to take a place on the back seat. 

"Where?" he asked. Anders hated back seats.

"I'm not allowed to tell. I'm sorry. My instructions are clear."

Anders threw a look at the hotel lobby. He couldn't go back to his room. Whoever they were, they had found his weak spot, his pressure point. Nobody could kill Dawn, she was already dead. But there were other kinds of torture other than the physical ones and the idea of his little sunshine suffering was more than Anders could bear. He wouldn't have her be afraid.

 _"Tá aiféala orm [I'm sorry], Mitchell,_ " he thought in a silent apology.

He was going to jump, head first into the trap, because he had to make sure Dawn was fine, and the only option he had now was to get in that car.

***

What woke Mitchell up from his dreamt memory was not a smell, but rather the absence of it.  The first thing he noticed as he pushed the covers from above his head was that Anders' scent was faint, like he had not been in the room for a while.

The Irishman didn't know for how long he had slept since the dawn, but he noticed that he could still hear the shower on the other side of the bedroom door, which was weird. He peeked at the alarm clock. The red numbers indicated 8:34AM. Unless Anders had felt the need to take a several hours long shower, something wasn't right.

Maybe the Kiwi had forgotten to turn off the shower and he was out to fetch them something to eat. But Mitchell had to be honest with himself and since the second he had opened his eyes, a nasty presentiment had started creeping inside him. He walked to the bathroom, hesitant and reluctant, trying to delay the realization.

"Baby?" he called softly as he pushed the door, praying to get a reply.

The silence that stormed out from the empty bedroom hit him in the face like a fist. He stayed in the doorframe, motionless for a second, like knocked out.

_Anders was gone._

_He had left him._

His jaw painfully clenched, he turned the shower off. He walked back to the bedroom and to the now empty space near the window, where Anders' suitcase still was the night before. Mitchell looked outside by the window and rested his forehead on the cold glass.

_Anders was gone._

_For good._

_Without an explanation, or even a note._

_Mitchell would never see him again._

He had seen it coming, but still managed to be in denial.  When he had caught Anders speaking to Dawn on the phone, it had been clear that the other vampire wasn't planning any kind of future for them both. But still, Mitchell had been so naive… such a fool to think he would be able to seduce Anders and convince him to stay. He had entertained a small hope that Anders claiming him as his official hunting mate would change something. He had given the other vampire everything, Anders had taken it and still left without saying goodbye.

Mitchell felt empty, betrayed. His male had abandoned him.

He was nauseous as he tottered back to the bathroom, on the verge of vomiting tears of grief. The sufferance the loss elicited in every cell, every fiber of his being was more atrocious than the one he had felt on the day he had been turned into a vampire. He punched the wall next to the bathroom door with an enraged cry, bruising his joints. He wanted to howl his pain like a wounded dog. It was irrational to suffer that much for a man he had only met not more than a week before, but nothing about his feeling for Anders obeyed any kind of coherent logic.

He went to the sink to splash cold water on his face but froze on the spot when he saw movement from the corner of his eye. There was someone else in the bathroom with him.

"Anders…"  he called out loud.

No reply. It wasn't Anders.

The movement was coming from the mirror. Stunned, he looked closer.

Through the steam, he could see the reflection of a dark silhouette. He turned around and scanned the space behind him. There was nobody else in the room. He looked back in the mirror and reached for it. The silhouette imitated him. Mitchell pressed his palm to the wet surface and wiped it.  A young man with dark, tousled hair appeared, a suspicious frown on his face as he stared back at him.  Mitchell's first reflex was one of shock, panic and self-defence. He vamped out and snarled at the apparition whose black eyes and fangs startled Mitchell even more. He gripped the edge of the counter not to fall over as he backed off in a violent, jerking move.  His eyes and the reflection's slowly turned back to their usual hazel color.  Fear gave way to fascination as the realization sank in.  There were two things he could be sure about: first, he was still a vampire and second, it was him in the mirror. He had a reflection. How or why it happened – he had no idea.

The last time he had laid his eyes on his own face was in his mom's bedroom mirror, just before he left for war. His mother had wanted him to have a look at his brand new soldier uniform. " _Look at yourself, Johnny, you are so handsome_ ," he heard her say, like a ghostly echo from the past.  It was so long ago. His appearance had not changed: not at all. It was both reassuring and terrifying.

***

There was a good reason why Anders hated back seats; it was because of the rearview mirror. It was always tricky when there was an unsuspecting human driving. If he tried to keep an eye on Anders by watching him in the mirror, he would not see anything but an empty seat. Usually, the humans would reassure themselves by pretending it was a trick of the light or an optic illusion… but still. No vampire liked the idea of risking to be discovered.

At first, Anders tried to squeeze himself against the door, not to be in the driver's field of sight, but when the vampire peeked into the mirror, he …. saw someone on the back seat.  Now it was him being the victim of an optic illusion because the mirror was showing him the reflection of a man with a classy suit and tie. Anders' lips parted in a surprised gasp.

It was like meeting an old friend again - a very old friend he had not seen for more than a century. He reached for his own face and touched his nose, lips and chin. The shock easing a little, he smiled at himself, satisfied. He looked fine, quite sexy, after all those years.

But why the hell did he get a reflection now!? He passed his tongue over his teeth. The fangs were still there: retracted but definitely there. This was intriguing, very intriguing.

The car stopped and the driver announced to Anders that they had reached their destination. Anders opened the door and stepped out. He lifted his gaze to the sign on the concrete building: Dublin International Airport.

"You are forgetting something," the driver told Anders, rolling his window down.

"What?"

"Your plane ticket, sir," the man informed him, putting the ticket in Anders' hand. Before the vampire could even protest, the Cadillac was already gone.

Anders looked down at the ticket to read the destination and he felt his blood freeze in his veins.

_Bristol._

 

**  
**


	11. Long Live the King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders had left his mating partner without explanations in order to find Dawn who might be in danger. Mitchell doesn't deal with abandonment very well. With Herrick's death, the vampires of Bristol find themselves without a leader and they go astray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it took me a whole year to update, but finishing this story is now my no1 priority. So you can expect new updates soon. 
> 
> Many thanks to Katyushha for her helpful corrections.

 

 

Fields, trees and shrubs on one side of the road, and, on the other: a long stone wall separating from the road a row of houses with dull yellow walls and brown roofs. The clouds in the sky were so heavy with rain they seemed to be crushing the horizon under their weight. Anders’ silent chauffeur had not opted for the scenic route once he had picked him up in front of the airport’s arrivals gate. Instead, he had taken the A38 road leading straight from the airport to the center of Bristol.

Anders didn’t mind the unattractive scenery. He was far from being in the curious mindset of a tourist. He felt more like the prisoner being transferred from his usual block to a max security one. He had other preoccupations than the landscape or the weather. The chief one was Dawn’s well-being. He knew that someone was using her as a bait to attract him to Bristol. For what purpose? He had no idea. He found little consolation in the knowledge that nobody could harm a ghost. There was, however, some ways to trap her in one place, possibly forever.

He had tried to phone her several times when he was in Dublin’s airport and once again after he had landed in Bristol. He hoped he could get to talk to her and be reassured that this was only bluff and that she was safe in Auckland. He had failed to reach her, and Olaf had not gotten any news either. All seemed to point toward the fact that she truly was in Bristol. Who had convinced her to go there? Who was keeping her? If the reports were true: Herrick was dead. It could only be the deed of his former henchmen: Big Bad John, for example. Some said he was even worse than Herrick. Somehow, Anders had the intuition John was behind everything that had happened to him since the moment he had set foot in Europe: that he had engineered everything from afar like a master puppeteer.

Herrick had turned Anders into a vampire and then, had spent decades tracking him down all around the globe. He had surely transmitted his obsession to his wingman. Having never gotten to know why Herrick wanted him by his side that bad just added to Anders’ paranoia.

He threw a look in the rear-view mirror. He could see his own reflection there and he looked a bit pale. That was not what troubled him, however, but the fact he could actually see himself.  It was an odd vision that he could not yet explain. He had gotten his reflection back after having lost it for a century, and still, he did not feel any closer to humanity. If anything, it was the contrary.

The man who drived the car was young, in his mid-twenties. He was not athletic, but still healthy. Anders ran the tip of his tongue on his lips.

The flight from Dublin to Bristol had been a short one, but Anders had spent most of it locked up in the toilets, despite the insistent knocks of an angry businessman from first class. The man’s innocent need to take a piss had had to wait. A vampire in an airplane was like a fox in a hen house. Anders had wished to cut himself from the other passengers and their mouth-watering scents. There was absolutely no way to hunt in an airplane and Anders was one hungry vampire at the moment. He had drunk his fair share of blood the night before, during his hunt with Mitchell. His need for blood should not have been that pressing, but in his nerves and growling stomach, it felt as if a month had passed since his last feeding.

A fleeting vision suddenly crossed his mind: him, grabbing the steering wheel and making the car crash into the stone wall. He would feed on his unconscious driver before escaping in the countryside before the ambulance arrived.

He smoothed the fabric of his trousers. That was not ideal. A very bad plan, in fact. If he wanted to find Dawn again, he had to keep the young man alive and conscious.

The tie around his collar strangled Anders. He loosened it and exhaled slowly to steady himself. Most of the bite marks Mitchell had left on his neck as they coupled had already healed. A few small white marks remained as the only evidence of his mate’s delicious fangs piercing his flesh deep and lovely. The scars now gave Anders a faint but disagreeable burning sensation. He scratched the side of his neck, but like with a mosquito bite, it only gave him a temporary relief before the itch came back tenfold. His body knew how to make it better. It conjured in his brain the image of Mitchell burying his face in the crook of his neck to gently tongue his skin and lick the scars better.

Anders looked out the car’s window with a frustrated groan. He had managed to get a useless boner on top of making himself even hungrier.

Perhaps, if he survived his encounter with the Bristol vampires and once he had managed to get Dawn back, he could go in search of his mating partner. Though, he was not sure Mitchell would forgive him for having left without notice. Anders heaved a sigh. It did not help anyone to dwell on it anymore. What was done was done, but the more he tried not to think about Mitchell, the more he thought of him. He pulled his collar aside and scratched his neck again.

The space between the houses tightened until there was none anymore. Trees had turned into streetlights and shrubs into laundromats, restaurants and antiquity shops. They had reached the core of Bristol. Everything seemed motionless, like an old, black and white postcard. The heart of the city had stopped beating, long poisoned by the venom of the vampire parasites who had chosen it as their capital.

The car engaged on a dark street and they drove passed an abandoned church. To Anders, being here was a nightmare come true. He wished he could be anywhere else, but it was not for him to decide. A century ago, Herrick had offered him a place in that kingdom. Too fond of his freedom and afraid of what it might be implying, Anders had fled. But no matter how far he had escaped, he understood now and the world was round and all the paths he had even taken had always been leading back to Bristol.  

The car slowed down and the driver spoke to him. “Here. That’s your stop.”

Anders peeked through the opposite window. They were in front of a funeral home. As soon as he stepped out of the car and shut the door, the driver was already gone, in a hurry to leave that place. This was a sentiment Anders could relate to.

Reluctantly, Anders lifted his head to read the old sign above the front door, in black and sick-green letters of crannied paint. _B. Edwards_ it said. All his lasting hopes that this whole game did not have any link with Herrick disappeared at once. The researches he had led with Olaf’s help, to discover if his venom-father was still looking for him, taught him that this funeral parlor had been Herrick’s headquarter since time immemorial.

Anders tightened his loosened tie, straightened his jacket and headed to the entrance. If only he had Mitchell with him. His mate knew the Bristol vampires. He knew what they were capable of.

The little bell rang like a death knell when Anders pushed the door open. He was already on his guard, his muscles tensing in the eventually of having to fight. He found himself in what looked like a waiting room with a thick brown carpet that, he suspected, was once orange, and an ugly wallpaper with sunflowers as a pattern. The room was empty and silent. Not a breeze made the thick layer of dust move on the old mismatched furniture. If there were vampires here, they were not keen on cleaning. Anders vamped out and sniffed the stagnant air. Except the mice inside the walls, there was nothing alive here… but it wasn’t the living beings that concerned him.

He blinked his eyes back to their paler color and started exploring the premise.

A short corridor brought him to an ajar door and a living room.

She was the first thing he saw when he stepped in: a woman with short-blond hair and the grey lace dress she wore since the day of her death. To Anders, she was livelier than most people he had met in his life, humans included.

She gasped at the sight of him and her eyes lit up. There was so much relief in them. Her face expressed a genuine, open joy and it made his chest tighten. He felt undeserving of such adoration, but when she ran to close the space between them, he still opened his arms to catch her. Dawn hugged him fiercely, her arms around his neck. He kissed her temple and breathed in her odorless hair. He barely felt her skin or her blond strands on his face. There was something evanescent about her, as if she had started to disappear in his absence. He regretted having had to leave her. This was a mistake he was not going to repeat. He would not let anything part them from now on. To his relief, she seemed to gain some consistence as he held her. 

“Don’t do that to me ever again, Andrew,” she admonished, not letting go of him just yet.

“You can call me ‘Anders’,” he replied, remembering Mitchell’s words: _“it is your real name. Your human name.”_ He took her by the shoulders and gently peeled her away from him to look at her properly. “There is no point pretending anymore,” he added.

Dawn nodded. She cupped his face and inspected him like a mother whose boy had just taken a fall from his bicycle, to verify that everything was still in place.  “You look different,” she observed. “Something happened to you.”

“A lot of things happened to me.” His hands on her shoulders were agitated with nervous tics that he tried his best to contain.

“You’re shaking,” she said.  

“I’m hungry.”

“When was the last time you fed?”

“Fourteen hours ago.”

“That’s pretty recent. You should not be feeling like that.”

“I know. But don’t worry about me. I’m more concerned about you,” he told her. “What are you doing here in Bristol?”   

“I was warned that you were under the influence of a very dangerous vampire: someone who had understood your blood could make him invincible and planned to take advantage of it... and of you. They said that if I came here, I’d be able to save you from him. ”

Anders frowned.  What was that nonsense about “invincibility”? Invincibility was bullshit from comic books. It sounded so absurd that Anders felt a chuckle forming in his throat. The laughter didn’t pass his lips, because the memory of Mitchell, with a stake through his heart and still alive, crossed his mind. But Mitchell had been his hunting partner, his coupling mate, his ‘lover’. Mitchell had risked his life to save his. He never had any intention of “using” him……. did he? Doubt, like a slow poison, was already starting to spread. 

“Who told you I was under someone’s influence?” he asked his guardian ghost. 

“I did,” said a voice from behind Anders. That voice belonged to a tall, sallow-skinned vampire.  “Long time no see, brother,” the vampire said, reaching for a handshake.

Anders stepped away from Dawn, but ignored the outstretched hand. “Seth,” he hissed between his teeth. The sight of that lizard-like face catapulted him back into memories of 1917, at the bottom of a trench in that forest in France. Seth’s face had been the first Anders saw when emerging from his transformation coma.  

“You remember me. I’m touched,” Seth commented, with a smile that lacked any warmth. He wiped on his pants the hand Anders had refused to shake. “But I shouldn’t be surprised. We are family, after all.”

Anders instinctively put himself between Dawn and the vampire. “You are deluded. Just because we’ve been turned by the same lunatic doesn’t make us brothers.”

“No?” Seth wondered, feigning surprise. “It’s a strange thing to hear from someone who spent so much quality time with his venom-brother lately.”

Anders’ hands closed into fists. “What do you mean?” The truth, alas, was starting to form in his mind, but if there was still a small chance he was wrong, he had to hold onto it with all the despair in the world.

“I’ve heard reports that you’ve met another brother of ours: John Mitchell.”

An icy tremor went down Anders’ back.

 _John_ Mitchell. Big bad _John_. Of course. It made so much sense.

 “He did not tell you who he was?” Seth wondered. 

Anders didn’t have to reply. The answer was plain to see on his pale face.

“It seems that you’ve trusted the wrong guy,” Seth added.

Anders had opened up to Mitchell and showed him a vulnerability he had never allowed himself to show to anybody else. He had been played. Like a fucking child. He had followed that young-looking male with pretty hazel eyes like a bitch in heat. How could have been so _blind_ , so _stupid_?

Dawn stepped back, because Anders’ eyes were now two bottomless pits of darkness and, even if she knew he could not and would not hurt her, she had never heard such a snarl come out of him.

The heavy wooden chair weighed nothing in Anders’ hands and even Seth retreated to safety when the chair was smashed on the nearest desk with a deafening bang.

 

***

“Since when did he come back?” There was not only worry, but also fear that pierced through George’s question.

“I found him on the doorstep last night,” Annie explained. “He’s been in that same state since then.”

His friends spoke in hushed tones the other side of his bedroom door, but Mitchell could hear their voices as clearly as if they were standing by his bed.

“He looks like shit. What happened to him? Did he say anything?”

“I think it’s because of Anders,” she speculated.

“Who’s Anders?”

“You know… Anders: the vampire lover he met in Ireland. I told you about him.”

Mitchell blocked his ears and buried his face into his pillow with a wail of pain. Just hearing that name made him feel like being stabbed with a knife.

Having heard his cry, Annie passed through the door and rushed to his side, but Mitchell sat up in the bed, bared his fangs and snarled at her. She froze and took a step back. That’s when the brunet realized what he just did. He shook his head, making an inhuman effort to chase the blackness off from his eyes. It did not work.

He grabbed a pillow and bit down into it with a whimper, his canines tearing up the thin fabric and sinking into the stuffing. It was a pathetic trick, but he knew it would appease his hunger a little, only for a short while. It would only work until the monster inside him would pick up on the fact he had not bitten any real flesh but only a pillow. There was another, more efficient way to control the fits of hunger, but that wasn’t something he wanted to do in front of Annie.

His breathing evened: he put the pillow down, retracted his fangs and his irises’ color warmed up to their usual hazel. “I’m sorry, Annie,” he apologized. She was still standing there, staring at him with a pained expression.

“I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to snarl at you,” Mitchell tried to explain. “I can’t control it… I-“ He couldn’t go on. It smote him again: this violent shudder accompanied by  incredible pain in every single muscle. It paralysed him, suffocated him. He fell on his flank on the bed, hugging himself with both arms like a scared child. These were the worst withdrawal symptoms he had ever had. It had nothing to do with a mere craving of human blood. Annie was right. Anders was the cause of all that.

Four days. Four days that Mitchell had not slept a single minute. Being a vampire, the lack of sleep would not kill him, but he was still completely exhausted. Mitchell dreaded having to close his eyes, because as soon as he did, he could see Anders: his naked body, his golden skin, his erected sex, his eyes as black as night, his pink lips and his long, sharp, beautiful fangs. Mitchell would not allow himself to fall asleep, because that meant he would dream of his mating partner, and _that_ , he was sure, would kill him.  He needed Anders to bite him and fuck him raw. He needed to bite Anders’ flesh as well and feast in his blood.

Mitchell suspected he would be in despair until his body would have ridden out all of Anders’ venom and blood he still had in his system. This would take a while. How many days? Mitchell didn’t know yet.

The pain lessened a little and Mitchell only realized he had been crying when Annie’s ghostly fingers grazed his cheek to dry the tears mixed with sweat.

“Good Lord, Mitchell! Who did that to you?” She hissed and reached to touch the numerous bite marks on the brunet’s forearms.

He sighed.  Her cold hands appeased the sting a little.

“I bit myself,” he confided, ashamed somehow for having been reduced to bite his own arms to get temporary relief.  “Annie…” he breathed. “Please, you have to listen to me. Tell George not to let any human in the house… not the postman, or the plumber or the pizza delivery guy. If a human gets near me, I’m going to kill them before you can even react.”

“Shhhh,” Annie soothed, petting his hair. “You’re not going to kill anybody. You are heartbroken. All you need is to get things off your mind.” 

“This is not going to get sorted even if I eat a whole pot of ice cream and watch a romantic comedy, Annie,” he groaned.

“No, probably not,” she conceded, “but that’s clearly not just your body that is suffering.”

“Please…” Mitchell murmured. He was not sure what he was asking for. Maybe he just didn’t want to be reminded of his other feelings, besides the physical ones he already had a hard time dealing with. He did not need to be reminded that he had fallen for Anders, and that the blond vampire was gone. He tried to avoid having to look those feelings in the face. He did his best not to think about his trust that Anders had so easily broken.

One could say he had every right to be angry at his former mate. But he couldn’t bring himself to hate Anders. It was all his own fault anyway. The other vampire had tried to warn him many times not to get too close or attached. Mitchell had disobeyed and now he paid the price.

Venom withdrawal, blood thirst: they tortured his body until he couldn’t take it anymore. But there were also the memories. He remembered the sparks of playfulness in blue eyes that hid a century of scars and disappointments. He could recall the amused comments and the way Anders had ignored his own injuries to find blood for him. Anders who was tired to be a monster, Anders who had cried in Mitchell’s bed after he had killed that girl in Dundalk. _Anders, Anders, Anders._ These images they clung to his brain cells, no matter how much Mitchell tried to expel them. He hoped they would fade once the venom completely eliminated from his body… but he doubted it.

In his current state, Mitchell was capable of anything, and that was exactly what scared him the most.

Since that morning four days ago, when he had woken up alone in their bed of the Merrion Hotel in Dublin, there was a part of him that still couldn’t accept that his male had consciously and intently left him. After he had found Anders’ SUV in the hotel’s parking, he had tracked him all across the city for three days, mad with pain and worry. He had searched for a trace of his mate’s scent everywhere in Dublin: in every street, alleyway, cemetery, next to every funeral parlor, in every hotel, club and bar. He had asked every person of his kind he had met in his wanderings if they had seen Anders, but a vampire abandoned by his apex mate repelled other vampires, as if Mitchell’s grief was contagious. He was an aberration among monsters: half of something, having been amputated of the other part.

On the third day, after he had searched every nook of the city and that his efforts remained fruitless, he had lost it for good. He had slaughtered a female taxi driver and got drunk on her blood. His venom was so strong, after he had coupled with Anders for so many days in a row, that he could not resist the urge to turn her into a vampire. And just like Anders had done to him, in a kind of unfair retaliation, he had abandoned her before she woke up. All alone in the city, with no father to protect and feed her, she would be killed by the local hunters within a week at best. Disgusted with himself, not feeling any better despite the recent feeding and having nowhere else to go, Mitchell had gone back to Bristol and the pink house.

 “You’re going to ask George to install a lock outside my bedroom door,” he pressed Annie in a raspy voice. “Tell him to lock me up in here, and you have to promise me that no matter what I say, or what words I use to threaten you, you won’t let me get out of that room for at least six days…”

“Mitchell-“ Annie began, in an attempt to object to such drastic measures.

“Promise me!” he thundered.

“Yes. Yes I promise. I’ll tell George to take care of your door, if this is what you really want.” The look in her eyes oscillated between pity and compassion. “Would you like a cup of tea or a coffee?”

“No…” he declined. “You’re a dear, but please… just leave me alone.”

She patted his shoulder and vanished into thin air.

Mitchell hugged the pillow to his chest and clawed into it with his nails and fingers. He shuddered with a dry sob when another lightning bolt of pain crossed his ribcage.

Annie must have reappeared downstairs, in the living room, because he could hear her speak to George through the ventilation trap under his bed.

“Do you know anything about vampires’ heartaches?”

The werewolf let out a powerless sigh. “I doubt there are books on the subject at the library. You can always try to google it.”

 

***

She could have just passed through the door, but Dawn had always been too polite to invade people’s privacy. Being dead had not changed that fact.

“Come in, Dawnsie,” said a tired voice.

He was not asleep after all.

She came in. There was enough light coming through the curtains of the tiny basement window for her to see her boss’ face. She felt a welcomed surge of energy and positivism when she noticed that he looked less feeble and pallid. She approached the army camp bed where he rested. The fits of stomach and muscles pain were less frequent now than during the first days of Anders’ ‘illness’. Their intensity had considerably abated. Seth’s cure seemed to have worked.

“How are you feeling?”

“Hangover.”

 “Do you want some water?” she offered, motioning to the nightstand. A few glasses and two jugs had been left there. One held water, but the other one and the majority of the glasses still showed traces of a red, sticky liquid and left no doubt on their previous content. She had not asked Seth or the other vampires where the human blood came from, and neither did Anders. Her eagerness to see her protégé’s state improve had been stronger than her curiosity or even her conscience.

“No. Thanks,” he declined. “Water makes my mouth even drier.”

“Okay,” Dawn breathed with a tranquil smile and she sat down to the edge of the bed. She pulled the blanket up to cover his naked chest.  The catheter that stuck out from the crook of his elbow brushed against her arm when he took her hand.

“Lie down with me for a bit,” Anders murmured. 

Something in him unsettled her: something that he had rarely shown to anybody, not even her: an unconcealed emotional pain... if such thing could apply to a vampire. There was not much left of her usually cocky, abrasive, witty boss.

She lay by his side and pillowed her head on his bare shoulder. He kept her fingers trapped between his and left their joined hands rest over his heart.

During the decade she had worked for him in Auckland, she had seen him in withdrawal a few times. When he needed a blood fix, he got edgier, snappier, impatient. He could have headaches and stomach cramps. But she had never seen anything like what she had witnessed in the last days.

Seth had explained that this was due to the venom and blood of that vampire everybody called by the ridiculous nickname of “ _Big bad John_ ” and that Anders still had in him.  In order to get it out of Anders’ system, they had withdrawn a large quantity of blood from his veins and had made him drink human blood to compensate the loss. Why the venom of this specific vampire had this effect on Anders? That remained a mystery, but she would persevere in her search for answers.

Dawn had gathered enough knowledge about the supernatural world to know that vampires don’t bite each other outside of sexual activities. If John Mitchell’s venom had entered Anders’ body in the first place, it meant that they had sex together. She could not deny that this was the part that made her worried for him the most.

“Anders?” she asked tentatively.

“Hm?” The low hum that vibrated through his chest encouraged her to continue.

“When you and him… I mean… when he bit you: was it consensual? Did he force himself on you?”

She waited for a reaction, but there was none.

“You know, you don’t have to be ashamed,” she continued. “You can tell me. What that man, John Mitchell... what he did to you-“

She paused when she felt his whole body tense at once. At least, she had gotten a reaction.

“Don’t say that name ever again, you hear me?”  he ordered. “I don’t want to speak about him, and I won’t. End of discussion.”

She knew she was not going to get anything more out of him, at least not today. He kept looking up at the ceiling and had sealed his mind closed, like the entrance of an Egyptian tomb.

 

***

For an instant, Mitchell was convinced he was back to the snowy streets of Dundalk, but the snow flakes that danced in the light were in fact tiny white feathers. They were everywhere in his bedroom. They had escaped from the destroyed duvet cover and the gutted pillow.

Mitchell sat up and shook the feathers from his curls, like a bear emerging from hibernation. He had no idea for how long he had slept. It could have been hours, days, weeks. The physical pain was nearly gone. Only remained a dull ache between his temples.

Mitchell took in the sight of desolation around him. He had no memory of having ravaged the room, but he knew he was the only one who could be the author of that destruction. It would take days to clean up, and Mitchell had never been a huge fan of housework.

The bed sheets were smeared with blood. He must have bitten himself again. The whole area of wallpaper next to the bed had been peeled off.  He could also see a splash mark of brown liquid on the opposite wall and shattered porcelain on the floor. Coffee had trickled down the surface from where the mug had been smashed. He would have to apologize to Annie for that. He just hoped he had not actually thrown the mug at her.

He scanned the overthrown bookshelves and the volumes scattered everywhere. There was not a piece of furniture still intact or at its right place. It looked like a werewolf had spent the full moon night in his bedroom. He wondered if he was not turning into one, despite the fact he still very much felt like a vampire.

“ _Ah shit.”_ He stepped out of bed with a groan when he saw what was left of his acoustic guitar: a heap of wood chips in a nest of tangled metal strings. He squatted and gathered the remains of the instrument in his hands. He felt the tingle of upcoming tears. Like many other things in his life, it was broken beyond repair. He sniffled and chased away the moisture from the corner of his eyes.

He stood and hissed from a sudden burning sensation coming from his hand. Bruises and laceration marred the knuckles of his right hand. Strangely enough, a large dent in the wall next to the door frame had the exact same shape as his fist.

“Mitchell?” a voice came from the other side of the locked door.

The vampire grabbed a bed sheet and wrapped it around his hips to hide his nudity. “Yes?”

“It’s been six days. I’m supposed to free you today. Are you still crazy or something?” George’s voice asked, hesitant.  “Do I risk my life and the one of the whole neighborhood if I unlock your door?”

“No… no, I’m not crazy anymore,” Mitchell sighed. “You don’t risk anything.”

There was a long silence the other side of the door, then: “You do sound saner.” 

“I am,” Mitchell confirmed.

After the metallic sound of the padlock, the door creaked open and the werewolf peeked inside. Mitchell offered him his best attempt at a smile and George was reassured enough to open the door completely.

Mitchell walked to him and engulfed him into a hug. To know that he still had friends and was not completely alone in the world: it threatened to provoke some more tears, but he managed to keep it together. George patted his shoulder in a sympathetic gesture but he wrinkled his nose. “I’m happy to see you back to yourself, but Jeezus, Mitchell. You stink. It’s an infection.”

The vampire chuckled, and it sounded odd to his own ears. He let go of his friend. “Sorry, man. I’m going to hit the shower right away, I promise.”

He headed for the bathroom and George fell into steps behind him. “Good idea,” he commented, “just please, don’t actually _hit_ it if possible. The neighbours already knocked on our door to complain about the racket you were making in your room.”

 “What did you tell them?” 

 “I said I had been hired to test violent video games... with a lot of torture scenes.”

Mitchell stopped by the bathroom door and raised an eyebrow. “And they believed you?”

“They must have, since the police didn’t show up yet.”

Rubbing his forehead, Mitchell leaned to the wall and gave his friend an apologetic glance. “I’m so sorry about the trouble I caused you and Annie. It won’t happen again.”

Tension left George’s shoulders and Mitchell knew he was forgiven.

The werewolf was about to turn around and take the stairs, but he stopped mid-motion. “Mitchell?  Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you in Ireland?”

“I would tell you if I understood it myself,” Mitchell assured him. He hit the doorframe lightly with the side of his fist, as a gesture of regret not to be able to explain.

They parted and Mitchell got on with fulfilling his promise to wash himself up.  It’s only when the tepid water hit his bare shoulders, went through his thick curls and trickled down his scalp that he realized how cold he was. He shivered and pushed the faucet until the water turned scorching enough to torture his skin. The burning on his epidermis was a welcomed distraction from the one in his heart.

When he stepped out of the shower minutes later, surrounded by a cloud of steam, he didn’t throw a single look in the mirror to see if the strange phenomenon had ceased.

“ _Fuck, I need a cigarette_ ,” he thought, later, as he rummaged through the wreck of his bedroom in search for surviving clothes.

 

***

The winter wind rushed through the streets like at the bottom of a canyon and tried to bite Mitchell through his jacket and fingerless gloves.

As he strode the wet pavement, Mitchell stayed vigilant, all his senses awoken, in case he would come across the familiar scent of his mate. It was an absurd instinct. Anders could be anywhere in the world. Why would he be in Bristol?

He caught himself wondering what Anders was doing at this precise moment: if he was well-fed; whether he was happy or lonely; if he had somewhere cozy to sleep.

Mitchell had still this insane urge to go in search of his male again, but he had to fight against it. No matter how loud he had howled for him in the night, Anders had been deaf to his call. If the blond vampire had wanted to be with him, he would have never left.

However, what he had come to feel for Anders could not be buried and forgotten within a week. He had to give it time. It would take years… decades, or maybe even some centuries, but at some point, he would be able to think of the blond vampire without feeling so many shards of glass puncture his lungs. At some point, the blue eyes and handsome face would fade in his memory and the wounds would heal, even though Mitchell suspected that for the rest of his long life, he would still be unconsciously waiting for Anders and looking for him anywhere he would go… just in case.

Mitchell came back to the pink house with a box of tobacco, rolling paper, a chocolate bar and a brand new mug for Annie. When he got inside, careless about the wet leaves sticking to his combat boots, he found her seated at the kitchen table with George and Nina. He leant down to kiss Annie on the cheek and he put the mug in front of her with a sheepish smile and a whispered apology. She took his hand and squeezed it when he sat at the table with them.

Nina gave him a forced smile, more like a displeased wince. George’s girlfriend had never liked or even trusted Mitchell and she took every opportunity she had to remind him of that fact. She always looked at him as if he was a ticking bomb. In regard of the most recent events, he could not blame her for being under that impression.

Mitchell opened his tobacco box and started rolling his cigarettes. The air was crisp with tension he soon noticed. He scrutinized the grave expression they all sported. “What’s the matter?”

Nina made the newspaper slide across the table to him and she tapped her finger on the headline.

Mitchell grabbed it and read.  _“The “vampire” killer strikes again: a young couple is found dead in Clifton park”_ His expression darkened as well. “When did that happen?”

“Yesterday,” Nina said. “There had been others in the last weeks.”

“You know that’s not me,” Mitchell defended himself. “I was confined in this house for a week, and before that, I wasn’t even in the country.”

“And you’re clean now,” Annie supplied. 

“Yes! That too!” he hurried to agree, aware that this was a lie, since he had thrown his good resolutions to the gutter to hunt and play with Anders.

“Apparently, some of the vampires had stopped hiding. They’re not as cautious as they were,” George commented. “But like I said before you arrived, the best is to stay out of it.”

 Mitchell dropped the newspaper. He got back to his tobacco and his previous task.  “No,” he stated. “I’m going to look through it: find who is responsible for those killings.”

“Why?” Annie asked, alarmed. “Why would you do that?”

“If the vampires get exposed, the whole supernatural world is going to be under threat. I can’t let that happen. The humans must not find out about us.”

“We’ve got rid of Herrick,” George protested. “It’s over. You don’t have to get involved into that shit anymore.”

Mitchell licked the edge of the rolling paper and glued it in place. “I have no choice.”

George stood up. “I think I know what you need!” he declared with a nervous laugh and an exaggerated sheer. “You need a good pint. How about a good old boys-night-out? We go to the pub later and we get drunk.”

“Sure, why not?” Mitchell replied distractedly. He stuffed the newspaper into his leather jacket. Later, when he was alone on the doorstep, exhaling puffs of white smoke, he smoothed the inked sheets and reread the article again.

 

***

Anders took a long gulp of coffee. When a light and fresh hand touched his shoulder, he put the newspaper down on the table so Dawn could read over his shoulder. They used to read the news together. This little thread of normality was everything they had kept from their life in New-Zealand. Anders suspected, without voicing it, that they would never listen to Jazz together at his Auckland’s penthouse anymore. They would not go to London and open a new PR company either. They would never leave Bristol. He was torn between being resigned and terrified by that fact.

“That poor couple…” Dawn murmured when she read the headline. “Do you think they were really killed by a vampire or is it the work of a human psychopath?”

“A vampire: no doubt,” Anders replied. “The article says that a jogger heard screams and called the emergency. Killing like that, in daylight, in a public area, without any precaution, it’s a capital offense among vampires. “

“Capital offense? What do you mean?” Dawn asked.

“It’s not this vampire’s first offense, obviously. He’s done it before. If it had happened in Auckland, Gundersen would have already smashed the guy’s teeth and fangs with a crowbar, like the mob boss he is. ”

Dawn covered her mouth with her hand as a reflex. “That’s horrible.”

“Welcome to the lovely world of vampires, sweetie.”  Anders deadpanned. “It’s maybe ruthless, but it obeys to certain laws.” He pushed his mug aside. The coffee from the funeral parlor’s machine tasted like it had brewed from human ashes. “With Herrick wiped out from the map, there is obviously a void in the hierarchy. It’s going to be the law of the jungle here until the dust settles. ”

Dawn sat down in an empty chair and lost herself in thoughts as she traced flower-like patterns in dust on the surface of the table. “Big bad John was Herrick’s right hand, wasn’t he?” She had taken the chance to bring up that subject, knowing it was not her boss’ favorite.

Anders showed his irritation by drumming his fingers on the armrests of his chair. “Yes. Why?”

“Wouldn’t he be his logical replacement?”

Anders took his time before replying. Mitchell had told him he was different than the other vampires; that he was trying not to be a monster and Anders had wanted to believe him. But Mitchell had lied about his real identity and his past.  Anders didn’t know what to believe anymore.  “If he wants to take Herrick’s place and be accepted as the new mob boss by all of Bristol’s vampires, he will have to prove he is more of a violent power-hungry fucker than any of them.”

“And you think he is?”

“I don’t know…”

Anders thought back of the curly-head brunet he had met in Dundalk, his boyish grins and welcoming arms. Anders still had a hard time thinking of him as an unmerciful, corrupted and cruel vampire king. But once again, did he really know him? If Seth was right, Mitchell knew that Anders’ blood would make him stronger. It could well be part of his plan to become the new king. It seemed that their meeting in the Irish cemetery had not been fortuitous at all. It had been meticulously planned by Mitchell itself, playing the handsome vampire desperate for a hookup: and Anders had fallen for it like an amateur.

“It’s so empty here,” Dawn observed with a shiver, inching toward Anders for comfort. Except the usual cracking sound one would expect from an old building, the funeral parlor was completely silent. “Where are Seth and the other vampires?”

“No idea,” Anders said with indifference.

“They are gone often these days.”

The fact did not seem to alert him much. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Before they could discuss it any further, Anders’ phone started ringing in his pocket. He excused himself and went to another room to answer.

“Hello?”

“Andrew?”

He had expected it to be Olaf calling him. The feminine voice startled him.

“Michelle? Where did you find this number?”

“Your doggy friend gave it to me.”   

This was not good. “What do you want?”  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

“I wanted to warn you that Colin knows you are in Bristol. One of his contacts saw you at the airport. He’s coming and he’s very determined to end you to avenge Helen’s death.”

Anders took the news like a cold shower. “Why are you warning me?”

“Because it’s fun to mess with Colin’s plans,” she said. “Besides, I’m bored, and I miss your cock. If Colin doesn’t kill you right away, do you think we would have a bit of time together for playing doctor?” 

Anders ignored the saucy offer. “When does he arrive in Bristol?”

“Tomorrow. We’re at the airport now. I’m calling you from the ladies’ room.”

He hung up. He was a dead man if he did not find a shield to hide behind. He had just slipped the phone back into his pocket when Seth walked into the room, carrying a thermos cup.

Without any preamble or word of greeting, Anders confronted him right away. “Listen. I know that you didn’t cure my withdrawal out of family sentiments. You want me to be here, or else you wouldn’t have used Dawn for bait. I don’t know why, but to be fair, I don’t give a shit. I’ll stay, as long as I get something out of this association.”

Seth pinched his thin mouth as his brain was racing to find the appropriate way to respond. “What do you want?” Seth finally said.

“One of my enemies that is coming for me.”

“An Illyrian vampire?”

“Yes. A powerful one: the King of Auckland. ”

Seth licked his lips with a pleased smile. “It will be our pleasure to get rid of that scum for you, sir.”

Anders rubbed his hands together. “Good.” The shield was in place.                   

Seth handed Anders the thermos. “Here. I bought you a fresh drink.”

The strong and enticing smell of fresh human blood climbed from his nostrils right into Anders’ brain. His tongue went dry and sandy with urgent thirst.  He did not thank Seth, but proceeded to drink the thermos’ content right away. The blood went down his throat, sweet like liquid honey. There was also an odd edge to the taste: nothing unpleasant, just an unusual flavor. He swallowed the last gulps. He was licking the last drops from the corner of his mouth when Dawn joined them in the room. Usually, he would have been ashamed to be drinking blood in front of her, but the warm sensation in his chest and his muscles tempered any sense of guilt. Feeding had made him feel more acceptant of his current situation. He even gave the empty recipient a regretful glance before he handed it back to Seth.

No words were passed between the three of them, but Seth threw Dawn a wary look before he walked out and left them alone. Ghosts obviously made the British vampire uncomfortable.

By the look on her face alone, Anders knew that Dawn was aware of the phone conversation he just had.

“You think it will be enough to stop Colin from getting to you?” she inquired.

He put his arm around her waist. “I hope so.”

 

***

The King’s Head was quite desert for a Friday night and the tip of Mitchell’s fingers started getting numb where they gripped at the cold shape of his pint of Guiness. The beer, however, had not touched his tongue yet. The foam top evaporated and the small bubbles sinking into the dark liquid had a hypnotic effect on him. Mitchell followed their struggle from under a furrowed brow. 

The last time he had drunk alcohol, it was from the bottle of champagne Anders had ordered in the nuptial suite of the Merrion’s. Mitchell had sipped the champagne from a flute as he watched his male sleeping in the oversized bed. Anders was wounded and sick at the time, but he was his: his to heal and comfort.

“Are you even listening to me?” George asked, tearing the vampire from his nostalgic musings.

“Yeah, yeah…What were you saying?”

The werewolf rolled his eyes. “You were thinking about the vampires attacks, were you? You’re not going to let it go.”

Mitchell pushed away from the table with a huff and slouched in his bench. “Don’t you understand that the situation puts us all in danger: Nina and Annie included?”

George squinted in mute analysis for a few seconds. “I know what this is about,” he finally said. “It’s your lack of purpose.”

“Sorry?”

“You are not in a relationship… at least, no longer,” George pointed out. “You don’t have a family or a career. Now that you’ve sorted out that violent, volatile phase you’ve been through, you’ve nothing left to fight and nothing left to safeguard. So there is nothing left for you to do. You’re like, um, a piece of deadly furniture. That’s why you are eager to deal with these murders, even though it’s not about you anymore.”

Mitchell was staring with wide eyes. “Did you just call me ‘deadly furniture’?”

“What I mean is that you can never stay out of trouble. When everything is too peaceful, you feel useless.”

The Irishman set his jaw in irritation. He flexed his fingers and played with the rings on his fingers. “Thanks, by the way, for rubbing salt in my wounds and reminding me the epic failure that is my love life. Cheers, mate.”

“Oh come on,” George protested, “don’t take it the wrong way.”

“Because there is a good way to take it?” Mitchell snapped, rising from his bench.  “I need a piss,” he firmly said, as a final point to a conversation he did not want to have. 

George showed the palm of his hands in surrender. “Okay. I see that this is a waste of time. You won’t change idea. I’ll pay and wait for you outside.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Mitchell declared. He abandoned his untouched pint on the table and went to the bathroom, stomping his feet in anger. He was not exactly angry at George for pointing out the truth, but it was a more general kind of rage: toward life perhaps. 

The street was soaked in humid silence when Mitchell stepped outside the pub. “George?” he called, with a sudden sense of foreboding. The name bounced on the cobblestones and echoed back, unanswered.

A jet of strong chemicals went down Mitchell’s spine when he heard a cry of pain. His body went into motion. “George!” he yelled again, running through the labyrinth of small alleyways.

He found his friend cornered into a chapel’s porch, his nose bleeding and surrendered by two tall shadows.  His first reflex was to throw himself in the middle and protect George, but he didn’t even have to. As soon as the female vampire spotted him, she exclaimed: “Oh shit! Here comes Mitchell!” She pulled on the sleeve of the tall male and dragged him away. They ran away in the ill-lightened streets, laughing.

Mitchell had recognized the couple: Ivan and Daisy. What were these two troublemakers doing in Bristol?

“You’re alright?” Mitchell asked the werewolf, helping him back on his feet.

“No! I’m not alright! I’ve just been punched in the face!”

“Go back to the house,” Mitchell ordered. “I’m going to go after them. I need to know why they’re here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, just go!”

He pushed George in the right direction and sped after the escaping vampires. He could not smell them, but he still heard their steps on the hard pavement and their muffled laughter of excitement.

Their trails led him to a parking garage. He finally caught up on them on the third level.

Daisy and Ivan were all over each other, lost in a frantic kiss. They parted with a smirk when they saw they had a witness.

“Why did you attack George?” Mitchell barked, tightening his fists, but with no intention to use them just yet. 

“It’s you I should have punched, actually,” Ivan said.  “The werewolf was the weapon, but you were the perpetrator. There are rules, Mitchell. Herrick was your venom-father…”

Daisy stepped back and sat on the hood of a blue car. Her flowery skirt was dirty and she made sure Mitchell had a good view on her legs. It failed to have the desired effect on him. He had already gone there: he and Daisy had slept together a few times, but in the end, she would be Ivan’s… just as Mitchell was fatally Anders’, no matter if the blond vampire wanted that bond or not. 

“Since when are you back in the country?” Mitchell asked Ivan.

“A couple of days,” he replied, on the tone of casual conversation as he paced between Mitchell and his female.

“So you came all this way just to have a pop at George, huh?”

It was Daisy’s turn to intervene. “We were curious. You are the killers of kings, after all.”

“Bristol is the place to be, these days,” Ivan added. “It’s pretty entertaining and the best is yet to come. There is a power-vacuum here.” He took a deep breath, as if he could smell the shift of power in the insalubrious air of the parking garage.

“And you intend to fill it,” Mitchell scoffed. 

“No, no, no,” Ivan denied, shaking his head in a theatrical manner. “I just want to sit back and watch the flames. Removing someone like Herrick: it’s never clean, it’s never clinical. It leaves a wound and wounds get infected. You’re sliding into chaos here. It should be an interesting show.”

“And not only that,” Daisy supplemented. She slid down the car and approached Mitchell. “There are stories circulating; interesting stories about two vampire mates. One of them took two wolf-shaped bullets, the other got a stake in his heart. None of them died. You don’t happen to know them personally, do you?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Mitchell lied in a groan. 

“Oh Mitchell. You are a terrible liar,” she scolded. She grabbed his chin and ran her thumb across his mouth. “Your lips are almost black with venom. You’ve been fucking a lot recently… and it’s been good, really good, wasn’t it?” He turned his head and pushed her hand away. “It’s almost like I can smell sex on you,” she continued. “Where is your apex male, Mitchell? I’d really like to meet him: add him to my personal scrapbook of celebrities. Tell me. Is he handsome? Is he well-hung?” she singsonged. Then, she grew darker and took a sensual undertone to ask him: “Can you bear it when he fills you completely; when his fangs sink into your neck?”

Mitchell shifted, shocked to realize how quickly his own body had responded to the sexual images she had forced into his skull. 

 “I don’t know where he is,” Mitchell hissed. They knew about Anders and he would be wasting time trying to deny his existence. “But let me make this clear. An attack on him is an attack on me.” He glared at Ivan and Daisy, and made sure the threat has been registered. “Same goes for George. You see anyone you tell them that… and you tell them we go back to the shadows where we were. Herrick’s revolution had been cancelled.”

He took his leave without a farewell, through the puddles of water where the wan lights of the parking garage reflected. The vampire couple watched him go in silence.

Despite knowing that Annie and George must be worried for him, Mitchell did not walk back to the pink house right away. He ended up wandering in the sleeping streets.

Thinking about the unpleasant conversation he just had was like playing with a coin. There was no tail to it, but only a head that kept on changing everything he flipped the coin: Herrick’s, Anders’, George’s, his…

He hadn’t mentally registered what direction he was taking. It’s only when he lifted his gaze from his boots that he realized his steps led him to familiar yet dreaded grounds.

The facade of B. Edwards was dressed in a cloak of sharp shadows. He stopped on the opposite sidewalk. The place looked derelict and on the verge of crumbling into dust, just like the vampire society of Bristol. Maybe it was Mitchell’s duty to preserve it from ruin… for the greater good.

Mitchell walked away, already feeling the weight of a crown he had never wished to wear.

***

 

Anders slept a lot these days. Dawn suspected that her boss didn’t really want to walk and act in the actual world. He found oblivion preferable to full-flesh consciousness. Hence, she was surprised to find his bed empty when she tiptoed in his small room in B. Edward’s basement.

Worried, she looked everywhere in the premise but found no sign of him. She crossed path with Lauren, a surly-looking vampire woman, but Dawn didn’t trust any of the Bristol vampires and she abstained from asking if she had seen Anders anywhere.

Perhaps he had got tired of the confined and dusty atmosphere of the funeral parlor and decided to take fresh air outside.

Her intuition proved to be right, because she found him standing barefoot on asphalt of the street. He was wearing only a nightshirt, too large for him, and a pair of black boxer shorts. In any other circumstances, it would have been comical, but he looked like a lost, homeless child, and there was nothing Dawn found funny about it.

Above the square shapes of buildings, the rising sun spread a golden and pink tincture on the puffy clouds.

“What are you doing outside?” Dawn asked him.

Anders turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were glazed, absent, and Dawn understood that he was not entirely there. She had never suspected sleepwalking was something that could happen to a vampire, but she had an evidence of it in front of her very eyes.

“I’m waiting…I’m searching for a smell,” he said. “It’s earthy and heady, kind of like the soil of a pine forest after the rain. It’s hard to describe.”

For once, Dawn had a direct access to her protégé’s subconscious. She felt no shame in using it to discover what was truly eating him. “And what is that scent?” she asked, keeping her voice soft not to startle and wake him.

“His,” he replied, staring into the void. “That’s what _he_ smells like when he’s in my arms.”

“Come,” she said, putting a hand on the small of his back to bring him back inside and to his bed.

The whole picture gained in complexity and, at the same time, became more evident to her. She had been mistaken. She was sure now that John Mitchell had never forced himself on Anders.

 

***

It was the first time Mitchell showed up at the hospital for almost a month. He considered himself unofficially fired, not that he cared much about losing his job as a cleaner in the first place. It seemed he had a new one now anyway: keep the vampire world in anonymity.

The bodies of the most recent prey had come in the hospital and the headline in the newspaper showed that the system supposed to cover up the killings had been failing recently. Mitchell felt that if he didn’t step forward and put it right, nobody else would.

“Herrick’s gone. I’m handling this,” he declared, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back on the wall, next to the narrow window of the forensic office.

Doctor Quinn put his glasses down on his desk and eyed the intruder. “What happened to him?”

“Politics.”

The old man carded his fingers through his long, white beard and nodded slowly.  “That figures. I didn’t have my envelope for three months now.”

“We’re in transition, the deal is-“

“The deal’s off,” Quinn cut him off. 

Mitchell frowned. This was not turning the way he expected. “You think you’re doing the noble thing, do you? But you are making a grave mistake.”

“All those years, I covered for your murders and I tried to convince myself that you were a part of nature, like the tigers, or the earthquakes, but you are nothing but murderers,” Quinn said, his Welsh accent thicker with spite. “The deal’s off,” he repeated one more time. “I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eyes, at least once in my life.”

He grabbed a pile of files and headed for his office’s door, determined not to spend one more second with a creature he despised.

“You’re forgetting something,” Mitchell hailed him. The doctor ignored him until Mitchell spoke up again.  “Your grand-children: we know where they live.”

Quinn stopped dead in his tracks, like he had hit a brick wall. He did not turn around to look at Mitchell. He did not utter a single word. He just froze there for a long minute before he continued and disappeared into the corridor.

Mitchell hated having to do that: having to say those words, and he had no intention to go after innocent children, but Quinn had to understand what was at stake here. If the existence of the vampires was revealed, it would be hell on earth, not only for the vampires themselves, but for supernaturals and humans alike.

He was not sure he had managed to sway Quinn. Perhaps Mitchell should have gone after him and made sure his threat had had its effect, but he chose not to. Mitchell sensed that this was only the beginning of a frustrating day.

The weather outside was cold but sunny. On his way to his next meeting, Mitchell noticed that the sun did not bother him as much as it used to. He slipped the realization into a mental file and to the bottom shelf. He had other pressing matters to worry about.

Chief constable Wilson was waiting for him on a bridge. The place had a perfect view on Clifton Park. From there, Mitchell could even see the yellow bands that circled the scene of crime where a young couple had been drunk dry by one of his congeners. Surely, the policeman chose this meeting place on purpose. Perhaps he suspected Mitchell to be the killer and wished to confront him to his deed, like the movie detectives who directed a spotlight in the face of their prime suspect. All Mitchell had to do was to show he was not intimidated by the manoeuvre.

“You know why I’m here,” he said as a matter of introduction.

“I assume you are the new Herrick,” Wilson replied, leaning forward on the bridge railing and not looking at this interlocutor just yet. 

“Firstly no. I’m not the new Herrick. I’m a representative.”

The self-given title left the constable unimpressed. “So? Represent.”

“We have a situation.”

“Bloody right you do,” Wilson grunted, turning around to glare at him. He was shorter than Mitchell, less in shape, but no less dangerous for his eyes had something vicious and corrupted in them. He didn’t need the fangs to nurture evil and perversity in his own heart. “The press is all over your most recent meals. Why can’t you guys stick to homeless alkies?”

“You worked with Herrick,” Mitchell stated, eager to keep that meeting as short as possible. “I hope we can come to a similar arrangement.”

Wilson eyed Mitchell from head to toes and snorted. “Herrick was a despotic, ginger arsehole, but he had backbone. I don’t see that in you.” He motioned to leave, just like Quinn had done an hour ago.

“So what are you going to do?” Mitchell stopped him.

Wilson smirked. “Maybe it’s time we started rounding all you vermin up.”

“Yeah, but you are implicated.”

This time, instead of annoyance, it’s plain rage that flashed in the man’s eyes. “I’m a chief Constable,” he bellowed. “I’m on first name terms with the shitting Home Secretary, you are a bloody monster and not even one with balls. Who the fuck is going to listen to you? There is no half-measure. If you want it to work, you’ll have to come up with something more substantial than ‘you’re implicated’.”

As he heard the screech of Wilson’s car tires on the asphalt, Mitchell kicked the bottom of the bridge’s railing with a shout. The situation had gone from bad to worse in the span of one morning.

On his way home, Mitchell took a short-cut through a tunnel under a bus station. He descended in that modern version of a Paleolithic cavern where the animal paintings had been replaced by graffiti representing male organs, anarchy symbols and eloquent tags like “fuck the cops”. He found it reassuring that none of them said “stake them all bloodsuckers”. If Mitchell didn’t find a solution quickly to the slippery slope where he found himself, this kind of slogan would soon be found on every wall.

Mitchell was so deep in pessimistic thoughts that, when he turned the corner, he nearly tripped over a homeless woman. She was sitting to the floor, clinging to an old blue sleeping bag that had known better days.

“Cara?”

“Mitchell.”

“Where is everyone?”

Her red coat was caked with dirt and mud. She stank. He could smell coagulated blood on her. She was his venom-sister, but Mitchell had always felt nothing but disgust for Herrick’s little princess.

“I’m an orphan now,” she complained with a shrill voice, “since your pet killed our brave captain. I should drink you dry, cut you into slices.”

Mitchell kept himself from laughing in her face. She had been turned too recently to know who she was addressing. “Alright, listen to me. Two people were killed by the waterside. I need to find out who did it.”

“I did! I was hungry.” The tone was the one of defiance rather than confession.

“That’s a capital offense!” he reminded her. “ _You_ should be the one being cut into slices for having done that. If Herrick was still here-“

 “Well, he’s not, and it’s your fault, so who’s going to punish me, huh? Who’s going to stop me?” She chuckled and showed her brown teeth. She seemed to doubt he was capable of such thing, but there was a good reason why people used to call him Big Bad John. 

He crouched down to be at her eyes level and to be sure she would listen to every word. “The killing has to stop. We can’t cover it up: there is no process anymore. They’ll find out about us and then, they’ll come after us.”

She shrugged and held his gaze. “And?”

“Alright. Round everyone up,” he ordered. “Tonight, at the old church. That’s everyone, you hear me? Every vampire in that damned city has to be there.”

 

***

Constructed by the Methodists in the mid-1850s, the Withfield Tabernable Church was abandoned for over thirty years now, due to falling attendances. People of modern days felt no need to gather and pray, now that they did not believe in the reality of true evil anymore. These were Mitchell’s ironic thoughts as he jumped over a fence at the back of the church.

Nature had taken its claim back on the churchyard. The tombstones were hardly visible, trapped in nets of overgrown weeds. Against the darkened sky, the gothic bell tower looked like one white fang or a middle finger aimed at God himself.

Mitchell knocked four times on the back door, paused, and knocked again two times.  The door opened on a vampire woman with short brown hair and a black dress. As soon as Lauren recognized him, she pulled him into a savage kiss.

He pushed her away firmly. “I’m not here for that,” he told her. She stepped back, an ugly mix of disappointment and anger spoiling the effort she had put in her makeup. He threw a look around and was satisfied to see half a hundred vampires there. That was almost everyone, but not quite.

“Where is Seth?” Mitchell asked.

Lauren dropped her gaze. “I don’t know.”

He was her venom-father. It was nearly impossible for her to lie and look him in the eyes at the same time.

Mitchell threw her a side-glance, but did not make any comment. She had expected them to finish the night together in a seedy motel room, swallowing mouthful of each other’s blood, but he had made clear right away that it would not happen. He could not foresee what her lie was more than just mere vengeance for his rejection.

Mitchell walked through the central alley, gauging the vampires assembled there. They all looked homeless and neglected. Lately, their life had not been better than Cara’s. Herrick’s death had unleashed them in the streets. They were rabid dogs, dangerous ones, who had tasted human blood, and now they were strays as well.

“Quiet!” he shouted to catch their attention, but they kept on chatting and snickering as if he was not more than a fly on a wall. He was the helpless teacher stuck with a class of turbulent, delinquent children. “Two bodies came into the hospital,” he said, louder. “The couple was attacked at daylight.”

“What are you going to do about it, big man?” a female voice mocked.

He straightened his shoulders. “Quiet! Listen to me! The random killing has to stop! If we carry on that way, we’re going to be discovered!”

“We don’t give a shit about you or what you say,” said a tall, lanky vampire wearing shades.  

“The only reason why we’re having this conversation is because of your little vendetta with Herrick,” Daisy pointed out from where she leant against a stone pillar. She had come without Ivan, and seemed to enjoy the show.

Her amused expression was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Mitchell felt every one of his muscles and sinews pump up with venom and blood. Liquid ire ran from his heart to the tip of his fingers.

“Do you people have any fucking idea who I am?” he yelled. This time, a startled silence fell on the church. “My name is John Mitchell, and I’ve killed more people than you’ve met!” Every gaze was now on him; every vampire held a breath they could still hold for the rest of eternity. “The one of our kind who killed that couple in Clifton Park stepped out of bounds, exposed all of us… and she has to be punished,” he declared, turning his head to glare at Cara.

She gulped as she understood too late that she had made a grave mistake in underestimating his will to take action.

She screamed for mercy and struggled when he grabbed her by the back of her coat and dragged her to where the church’s altar once stood. No one made a move to help her. She had brought that upon herself, and they were all curious to see if Mitchell would have the guts to go through with it. Those who would have wagered that he was too clement to punish her were soon deceived. There was no hesitation or second thoughts on Mitchell’s part. His demeanor was the one of an experienced executioner when he selected a big piece of brick.

In her attempts to get away from her tormentor, Cara grabbed a large sheet of fabric that concealed a mirror. Her hands were still grasping it when Mitchell pulled her down in front of him.

Despite her pleas, he forced her jaw open and smashed her teeth and fangs out in one, precise and uncompromising blow.

This punishment was even worse than death to vampires. She was now condemned to an endless craving without being able to feed.

“Herrick is gone,” he shouted, throwing the bloodied brick away and Cara’s fangs at Daisy’s feet. His voice was like a foghorn in the favorable acoustic of the church. He wouldn’t have had to shout, however, because apart from his words, one could hear a pin drop. The people gathered there were baffled, not so much by the spectacle of justice, but because it was possible to see the tall shadow of the dark haired vampire reflect into the mirror behind him.

“The old system is gone,” Mitchell told them. “I am the new system. I am the new Herrick, and you owe me obeisance!”  After so many centuries under Herrick’s yoke, the language of power and dominance was the only one the Bristol vampires understood. At least, that’s what he told himself.

At first, there was no reaction, but, at some point, someone if the back shouted “Long live the king!”, and soon everybody was chanting those four words, louder and louder, until it became a unanimous clamor.

Mitchell slowly stepped down the altar, ignoring Cara who was still vomiting blood and tears.

He felt his chest swell with this newfound power.

He had to find Anders, wherever he was and put a kingdom at his feet: a dowry of some sort. They would reign on the capital of the Snow vampires’ line together. He controlled the whole city now and he would offer it to Anders as a hunting territory. There would be only one condition to their association: that the blond male was in his bed every night. No vampire would turn down such an offer. Who wouldn’t want to be the right hand of a city’s king?

He was too drunk from his own triumph to remember the words he had exchanged with Anders on their very first meeting.

Anders had pointed, with disdain, that vampires had big egos and all of them thought they were more powerful or clever than the others.

Mitchell had objected that he was different.

But it turned out he was not. He had spent so much energy trying to skirt the rules that he had not realized he was now playing the game in full.

The back door of the church slammed open and the clamor died right away. A few shocked gasps fused from the vampires assembled inside.

Mitchell’s eyes blown wide and dark, as if his irises had suddenly exploded.

Of all the possible visions, he had not anticipated that one.

In the doorframe stood Herrick…. as much alive as a vampire could be. 

It was impossible. Mitchell’s eyes had to be playing tricks on him. He had seen George tear Herrick apart. He could not be there. He simply could not. Paralysed by a sheer terror, Mitchell was repeating that denial over and over in his mind, but it could not dismiss the reality, and the truth was that Herrick was there, with Seth at his side. The little crowd of vampires parted to let Herrick pass through, like the red sea for Moses.

“Oh John,” Herrick said, sporting a smile he had borrowed from Satan himself. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I recall, the saying is ‘the king is dead: long live the king’, but as it turns out and despite all your efforts, I’m not dead.”

Cara came running and kneeled at Herrick’s feet, smearing blood from her hands and mouth on his coat. Herrick patted her head, but his stare was still drilled into Mitchell’s. “I’m truly sorry to be raining on your parade.” Everything about him indicated that he was not sorry in the slightest. 

A part of Mitchell wanted to lash out at Herrick and tear that smirk from his face, but the other part was praying that this was just one of those strange nightmares he had gotten lately.

“I’m afraid your reign will be the shortest in history,” Herrick added with a sigh of mock sympathy. “But still. It’s worth celebrating, don’t you think? That’s why I brought a surprise.”

Mitchell smelt his former mate before he actually saw him. The scent hit him in the face with the cruelty of a fist and the sweetness of a sea breeze. If his heart was still beating, it would have stopped when Anders walked into the church. A blond woman followed him closely, but Mitchell barely noticed her presence. Anders was everything he saw.

His name escaped Mitchell’s lips in a weak whisper, like the last breath of a drowning man.

Anders joined Herrick at the foot of the altar and when his eyes finally met his, they were cold and unfeeling.

Mitchell had been caught red-handed being a chief monster among monsters. Anders now knew who he really was. He knew Mitchell had lied to him.

He found his voice again to emit a plea: “Listen, Anders. I can explain…”

Anders stepped back to keep out of reach when Mitchell motioned toward him. 

“You’ll have plenty of time to explain later,” Herrick pointed out, “but I doubt Anders wants to hear it. Am I right, son?”

Anders stayed mute. He did not even bat an eyelash. 

The Kiwi was his venom-brother after all. The news regarding their connection did not shake Mitchell as much as it should have. He had suspected it since their hunt together in Dublin. It was like acknowledging an evidence. The rightful anger he should have felt about Anders having abandoned him now seemed a secondary consideration. Removing the look of disgust and disappointment in his mate’s eyes was the priority.

“Anders, please. That’s not what you think,” Mitchell tried again. 

Behind him, Seth had grabbed the brick with Cara’s blood still on it, mixed with dirt and dust.

“You’ve been a naughty boy, John, and a very bad influence for your twin brother,” Herrick admonished him, “but daddy’s here to clean up your mess now.”

The violent blow to his skull, when Seth hit him over the head, didn’t even startle Mitchell. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was that Anders had averted his eyes.

 

 

 

 


	12. The Man in the Cage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a milion time to Katyushha for the proofreading and the valuable second opinion.

 

In 1984, Herrick and Mitchell were in Iceland, during the eruption of the Krafla volcano. There, Mitchell had witnessed the fury of planet Earth: the smell of sulphur, explosions of rocks and the lava flow branding the side of the mountain at 1000 degrees Celsius. The eruption was the first memory that flashed through Mitchell’s brain when he opened his eyes. He felt like lava was running down the inside of his skull. He groaned and tried to move but the pounding pain made it difficult. He reached through his hair - his fingers met a patch of gluey, coagulated blood. It was Seth, that bastard, who knocked him off with a brick.

Mitchell took a sharp intake of air, but the dust on the concrete floor entered his lungs and made him cough.  Slowly but surely, he got on his feet and unstable legs. His vision was still somewhat blurry, but a quick look around, at the cage he was locked up in, was enough to make him realize where he was. An ancient warehouse had been annexed to B. Edwards funeral home in the late 40s. It was here that the vampires used to make werewolves fight in cages against defenseless humans, all for the sake of entertainment. Mitchell had always found the practice nothing short of barbarous.

“I got to say: I’m ever so confused,” said a voice, and it’s only then that Mitchell noticed Herrick, sitting on a garden chair outside the cage and drinking from a plastic cup through a straw. 

“What’s going on?” Mitchell mumbled his fingers gripping the metal grating to keep himself steady. 

Herrick rose from his chair. ”The cage is just a precaution. Pretty understandable, I think.”

Mitchell touched the sore spot at the back of his head again and hissed. ”Where is Anders? I need to see him. Why have you brought me here?”

Herrick took a pensive sip through his straw and started pacing along the cage. “Surely, who have I brought here is more apropos,” he reflected, ignoring on purpose the mention of Anders. “One second you let George tear my head off for the sake of humanity, and the other, you threaten Quinn to munch on his grand-children to be able to sit on my throne.”

“Well, I wouldn’t expect you to understand.  Your character had always been pretty consistent,” Mitchell growled. He massaged his aching temples.  “Where is Anders?” he asked again. Another question immediately came to his mind. “Why didn’t you kill me?” He was surprised to be even alive after his usurpation.

“I want to pick up where I left off, you see,” Herrick informed him, “with the mass recruiting and the revolution, and having you by my side-“

“No no no,” Mitchell objected, shaking his head despite it spinning like a crazy carrousel of pain. He crossed the space of the cage to get closer to Herrick and observe him through the door. “This is more than political manoeuvre. I make you weak. I make you vulnerable.” 

Herrick flashed him a wicked smile.  “Says the man in the cage.”

“Still walking and talking and making it look like you can’t finish the job.”

Herrick scoffed. “Not for want of trying.”

“But you always manage to fudge it somehow. Why is that? Just kill me, get it over with!” Mitchell yelled, throwing his hands in the air in defiance, his insides already boiling in anger.

The ginger-haired vampire didn’t lose his temper. “If you want to know the whole truth: firstly, I won’t kill you because I still need you alive and secondly, because I can’t anyway. You probably noticed that you are quite invulnerable these days.”  He gestured to show the device keeping Mitchell prisoner: “Hence, the cage.”

“But it’s not only about me, is it?” Mitchell remarked. “It’s about Anders as well.  I can’t quite figure out why yet, but it seems clear that now that you’ve got him: you need us as a pair.” The strange changes in his body had begun just after his first coupling with Anders. No doubt the two events were linked, though he was not exactly sure in what way. The pounding headache clouded his deductive senses, but things slowly started to get clearer. “After you recruited me, for five years we’ve traveled to a lot of places: Austria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Kazakhstan, Russia-”

“Aw,” Herrick cooed, sitting back in his chair. “It’s so lovely of you to remember that.” 

Mitchell did as if he had not been interrupted. “While you were bringing me along in these peregrinations, I was under the impression we were running after something, though you never wanted to tell me what. But I think I get it now. The metaphorical _stag_ you spoke about when I confronted you in Novosibirsk: it was Anders, wasn’t it? You had turned him but he had had the courage to do what I never could: he ran away, slipped through your fingers. But when we were in Russia, you decided to stop searching. You told me that you didn’t have to chase after him anymore because you had the perfect bait.” 

“Ah! Finally, you seem to be following the game,” Herrick congratulated him. “I was right, wasn’t I? You were the perfect bait. My patience had been rewarded. You found him and brought him back to me. I should give you a medal. In a dog show, you’d be the best fetcher.”

Mitchell gritted his teeth in an attempt to fight a rising nausea. The idea that all of this was his own fault, that he had served Anders to Herrick on a golden platter; it threatened to make him sick.

“You are a rebel kid, John, always was,” Herrick observed, putting his glass down on the floor. “But in the end, you systematically end up doing exactly what I want. That’s why I always valued you so much, apart from the fact that you were the only piece I had left of an incomplete puzzle. But now that I have Anders, you are even more valuable.”

“Why?” Mitchell dared to ask, though he was not sure he was ready to hear the answer.

Mind games were Herrick’s specialty, and Mitchell had learned not to accidentally step in one of his carefully laid verbal traps. Herrick was speaking of Anders, and Mitchell needed to know. Knowledge is power, they say. But with Herrick holding the key, it was like walking through a field of landmines.

 “Anders and you are unique: both indispensable assets to me and to the revolution. Your blood and his are more precious than gold when mixed together from your couplings. It’s Anders’ blood that made me come back from the dead, you see…and not only did it make me resurrect, but since I drank it, I feel like a new man.” He rolled his shoulders and closed his eyes with a brief, satisfied sigh. “I never felt so powerful, indestructible. I bet you felt the same after a nice roll in the sheets with him.”   

The words were to Mitchell like a whiplash and he saw red. “You fucked him!” he roared, crazy with blind rage, hitting the cage’s wall with both hands and spitting his words. “You fucked him! I’m going to tear your head off, you fucking bastard! He’s mine, you hear me, you piece of shit? He’s my mate; my male! I’m going to kill you! ” The idea of Herrick bringing Anders to bed, forcing him into the mattress, laying his dirty hands over his smooth, golden skin, it was more than Mitchell could bear. He vamped out and kept on kicking and slamming the cage, barking insults at his jailor who just sported an amused smirk as the only response to the storm aimed at him.

“I’m reassured to see that his empire on you is that strong as to make you lose your mind,” Herrick finally said when Mitchell had exhausted himself, “But don’t worry. I didn’t touch your darling mate. He donated his blood willingly for the cause.”

The sudden outburst of rage had made Mitchell’s migraine tenfold. It pressed his head into a vice. With a groan of pain, he let himself slid down to his knees.

When Anders had left Dublin, after their last night together, the Kiwi had in his veins a cocktail of his and Mitchell’s blood. Could it be true that this mix had the power to raise other vampires from the dead? Herrick was the proof of the truth he kept on denying.

 “Does this have anything to do with the ‘twin’ brothers thing?” Mitchell asked.  “You called us that way in the church, just before Seth made me kiss that brick. “

Herrick rolled his eyes and looked at his venom-son as if he was some dumb kid. “Don’t you get it already? You’ve both been turned by me, on the same night.” 

Mitchell glowered at Herrick and his eyes narrowed until they were just two dark slits. Even after an orgy, no vampire had enough venom to turn two victims in the span of one night. If, for whatever weird reason, anybody tried, one or both the prey would die before completing the transformation. “That’s impossible,” he stated.

The more skeptical Mitchell appeared, the wider Herrick’s victorious grin grew. “I made it possible.”

Surely, Herrick would laugh at some point and admit this was just some kind of elaborated joke. There were stories saying that the great ancestors: Snow and Illyria, the first vampire couple, had been created at the same time by the devil himself, but these were what they were: legends. The idea of vampire twins was plainly absurd.

Herrick was not laughing however, he was only staring back at Mitchell.

A small part of his brain pulled on the reins of his logic. It was impossible, that was a fact, but at the same time, if it was true, it would, in fact, explain a lot of things…For example: the instant attraction, the fact that every inch of his skin wanted every inch of Anders’ skin: like the opposite poles of a magnet. Perhaps, also, Herrick was too similar to Mitchell and it was the reason why he repulsed him that much.

“I never heard of such thing as vampire twins,” Mitchell said. “How did you do that: turn us both at the same time?” He wished to buy some time by asking for explanations. What for? He was not sure yet. Enough time perhaps to think of a way to manipulate Herrick into freeing him from the cage. Then, he would find Anders.

“By trial and error,” Herrick replied with a shrug. He slumped further into his garden chair. “But I can’t reveal everything at once, can I? Where would be the fun in that? I got to keep some mystery. Sometime soon we’re going to have a pajama party and I’ll tell you all my secrets as we brush the hair of our Barbies. Pinky promise.” 

Mitchell took the condescension and provocation without flinching. The encage animal was not moving enough for Herrick anymore, but Mitchell now intended to make the visit at the zoo as boring as possible. His gloved fingers went through the holes in the grating and gripped the cold metal. “I need to see Anders,” he said, taking a low, calm and measured voice. It was a demand, not a request.

Herrick slurped through his straw, taking his sweet time to make his prisoner hang there. “Yes, you’ve already said that.”

“I need to talk to him,” Mitchell repeated once more, forcing his voice not to inch toward the growl, but his impatience showed already.

The older vampire leaned sideways on his armrest and tilted his head to detail his prisoner. “I was surprised to learn that he was your apex and you his follower. Somehow I always thought it would be the other way round. Funny, isn’t it?”

A furious rumble vibrated through Mitchell’s chest. “Let me see him!”

“Anders knows his own mind. If he wanted to speak to you he’d be here,” Herrick pointed out. He pretended to take a look around for Anders. “And obviously he is not present. What did you think? That I was keeping him ready for you in a storeroom?”

Mitchell felt a stab of something he could not quite identify: Disappointment? Hurt? Distress? All of them at once, perhaps.

“It was a pleasure to catch up, but I can’t stay here all day,” Herrick said briskly as he rose to leave. “You messed up so bad while I was gone that my agenda is pretty full.” On his way to the stairs that led to the exit, he stopped a last time to remark: “I know what this cage would need: a giant hamster wheel, because it’s going to get very boring for you in there.”

 

***

Mitchell’s memories of the war were sparse, fragmentary. But one could not easily forget the night when they died to their human life to begin a vampire one. He was trying to remember if he had seen Anders that night, on the battlefield. That was a difficult memory exercise. They had been in the same regiment, but Anders was in another company and they never really spoke to each other. 

If they had never been turned into vampires by Herrick, would he have ever looked at Anders more than one second? Probably not. As human, they would have crossed path, not catching the other’s attention and then, they would have disappeared away from each other in the complications of life - if they both survived the First World War, that is. At the same time, they were born in Dundalk, which had never been a huge town. Maybe they would have gotten to know each other at some point. Trying to decipher the future of a life that had never been was as difficult as it was useless.

One thing stood out from the confused mass of Mitchell’s reflections, however. Herrick had lied to him. He had promised him he would leave the other soldiers alone if he accepted to be recruited.  Anders was the proof of his treachery. But at the same time, a dick move from Herrick was as predictable as darkness at night.

And since, without him consciously quite registering the fact, Mitchell was slowly starting to accept that Herrick had not lied on one thing: Anders was his twin, created from the same venom and same blood, during the same night. There was no other way to explain everything, from their miraculous survival to Anders’ fever, the strange dreams and the reflection in the mirror. They were Herrick’s creatures: the unsuspected success of a mad experiment.

Maybe their birth as vampires was something Herrick had engineered, but the things he had felt in Anders’ arms: the feeling of life and warmth, the raw joy, the trust, comfort and security: these were true, and their venom-father had had nothing to do with it. It was something Herrick could not spoil.  Mitchell held to that thought with every bit of hope he still possessed.

Mitchell had been turning around and pacing in the restricted space of his cage for half an hour now. Tired of it, he tossed his jacket in one corner and sat on the floor at the opposite side of his prison, his head resting back to the grating. The cracks and spots of humidity created abstract patterns on the old ceiling. It was the most interesting thing he could stare at. Despite that, he was too agitated to be bored just yet.

It must have started to rain outside, because a few cold drops of water landed on his jeans and his forehead. He closed his eyes and let them run over his face.

The unexpected click of the door handle at the other side of the room made him jump and his eyes shot open. The noise was followed by the smell of sweet cider that pervaded the whole warehouse and the rustling of expensive leather shoes on the floor.  Mitchell hastened to get on his feet.

If he still had a breath to give, Anders would have taken it away. The Kiwi man looked impeccable, as always; as if he was not aware that the room was dark, dusty, dirty and smelly; as if nothing of it could touch him or alter his beauty.

Anders’ lips were pinched in displeasure, but they had not lost their smooth and plump texture. His blond hair was tousled in a studied mess. Mitchell felt a rush of desire and attraction. He let his eyes travel over that body where he had poured all of his passion back in Ireland. That neck: he had loved it with heart, tongue and fangs, but now a cage, a black tie and a stiff collar kept it away from him. Mitchell could sense the turmoil underneath the guarded expression in the blue eyed darting across his own face. He felt the same exact troubling closeness and distance.

Anders stopped a meter away from the door of the cage and checked his watch. “You have five minutes.”

Mitchell wished he could reach for Anders’ hand or arm, but he suspected that even without the cage, the other vampire didn’t wish to be touched. “Anders, you have to get me out of here. You don’t know what Herrick is capable of. I have to bring you to safety, somewhere he will not find you,” Mitchell blurted out in one breath.

Anders blank stare changed into a frown. “Why would I do that? Anyway, it’s thanks to you that I’m here in Bristol.”

“I never intended to bring you to Herrick,” Mitchell corrected. .

“No, you intended to keep me for yourself, so you could use the strength my blood is giving you to achieve your mighty ambitions.” Anders’ tone was vindictive.  

“What the hell are you speaking about?” Mitchell protested, goaded by such mistrust. “I had no idea what effect your blood would have on me before I met you. It’s not like I planned to use you to become a superior vampire being or some shit like that.”

“You’re ready to say anything to get out of that cage,” Anders affirmed. “You really think I’m stupid enough to believe that after you spent a hundred years as his faithful wingman, you didn’t know anything about Herrick’s plans and that our meeting in Dundalk cemetery was totally random? You and Herrick spent years looking for me and you tell me that we just happened to run into one another on my very first days back in Europe? Sorry, but I don’t believe in that kind of coincidence.”

“Well, you should, because it _was_ a coincidence, as crazy as it seems,” Mitchell argued. “I swear Herrick never told me about you. I did not know you even existed before we met in Dundalk. 

Anders’ eyes veiled with doubt for a second, but soon enough, he attacked again: “If you didn’t know who I was, why did you lie to me, then? Huh? When I asked you about Herrick and Big Bad John, why did you lie if you had nothing to hide?”

Mitchell felt the accusations rekindle a grievance he had so far managed to keep buried. “That’s rich of you to take the moral high ground!’ he retorted, pointing a finger at his former mate. “I gave myself to you and you fucking abandoned me the morning after like I was some cheap whore! You even started the shower to make me believe you were still there so I would not try to hold you back!” 

“I don’t owe you anything!” Anders defended himself with all the vigor of his ire.

“I trusted you!” Mitchell yelled, revealing the underlying hurt in his anger.

“So did I,” Anders shouted back, “and you lied to me!”

They glared at each other in silence for the span of a dozen heartbeats. Mitchell did not feel any relief for having exposed his wounds to Anders’ sight. They felt even sorer and more gaping now. “Why did you even sleep with me in the first place?” he asked.  

Anders’ gaze dropped. “You were trembling with need. If I hadn’t given it to you of my own accord, you would have hunted me down until you would have gotten what you sought.”

The words tore a new wound open. Mitchell would have wanted to hear another answer: one that would have been farther from the truth perhaps. “You slept with me because you were afraid I would rape you?”

Stiff and still, Anders muttered under his breath: “Maybe not, but I surely didn’t set out looking for a fucking relationship!” 

Stung to the quick, Mitchell hit back before he could keep the words from leaving his lips. “No! Because you already had one!”

This time, their eyes met. “What?”

“That Dawnsie-girl.”

“Of course, you knew about her,” Anders hissed. “I keep forgetting who I am speaking to. How many people did you have to torture to get that information?” 

Once again, Mitchell spoke before he thought. “I didn’t torture anybody! I looked through your phone!”

“You had no right to do that!” Anders spat. A dark and dangerous glow took over his eyes. He stepped toward the cage and faced Mitchell through the door. “Listen, you stalking wanker:  you better not go anywhere near Dawn. You don’t speak about her! You don’t even look her way, is that clear?”

“Oh. She’s here, isn’t she?” Mitchell fleered, with a smirk that matched the savageness of the other vampire’s demeanor. “Did you tell her about us? No. I guess not. You must think she doesn’t need to know you cheated on her with me or just how loud you moaned when those little hips of yours were working between my thighs.”

For a split second, Anders’ body tensed up, as if he was going to lash out at him despite the metal fence between them, but instead, he stepped back. “Time’s up,” he decided, his voice icy, and he motioned to leave.

It was all it took for Mitchell to realize that this had gone too far, and that they had probably spoilt their last chance to reconcile.  “Anders! Anders!” he tried to call the Kiwi back.  “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said that: I shouldn’t have looked through your phone. Please, come back… Anders!” 

Anders stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned around, but he avoided setting eyes in Mitchell’s direction.

“Don’t you see what he is trying to do? Herrick is playing us off against each other,” Mitchell told him. “You’re already letting him poison your mind.” 

Anders crushed a dust bunny under the sole of his shoe. “Maybe Herrick’s an evil arsehole, but at least he’s not a hypocrite. And you can keep being obsessed with you little feud with him if you want:  I don’t give a damn. As for myself, I saw everything I had to see in the church last night.” He climbed the five steps and before he crossed the door, he threw a last sentence in Mitchell’s direction, like an uppercut under the chin. “You are not the person I thought you were, Mitchell.”

***

 

That last sentence kept playing in Mitchell’s mind like a broken record even after Anders was long gone.

He had felt overheated from anger after Herrick had left, now he was so cold he worried his bones would crack. He had fetched his jacket, wrapped himself in it and curled in a corner of the cage, arms crossed, in foetal position like a Peruvian mummy. He stared into the void, eyes dry.

Lauren came at some point, bringing a tray of food with a glass of water. He did not dignify her presence with a single look. As a revenge, she dumped the tray inside from an opening in the door and it fell to the floor, spilling its content. She sniggered and got back to where she came from. Mitchell paid no attention to her or to the wasted food and water on the floor. Thirst or hunger now seemed foreign sensations to him, even regarding blood.

There was this constant, low, sizzling sound that either came from the neon lights or from inside his hollowed and empty mind.

Maybe he had fallen asleep, or just completely zoned out, because when he noticed that Herrick was sitting in the garden chair again, he had no idea if he had been there for only a few seconds or if he was staring at him for hours now.

“What did you do to him to make him hate me?” Mitchell croaked.

Herrick wetted his lips with a reptilian tongue. “I only told him the truth: that you were a profoundly dangerous man and had the blackest heart of us all.” 

The older vampire was sharpening the end of a stake with a hunting knife and Mitchell pondered if the weapon was destined to him. After all, if Herrick wanted to get rid of him, he only had to keep him in the cage and wait until he was rid of every drop of Anders’ blood and venom left in him. Then, he’d be as vulnerable as anyone else.

“Big Bad John is dead. I’m not that man anymore,” Mitchell pointed out. “I’m surprised Anders believes everything you say,” he remarked. “He’s cleverer than that.”  

A wood chip curled at the edge of the blade and fell at Herrick’s feet. “I tend to agree with you on one thing. You are no longer big. But bad: that you are,” he taunted him. “I think everybody in the church yesterday, when you gave your moving speech, could see what you’re capable of.”

Mitchell felt his chest tighten. He wished Anders had not seen that part of him.

“I wouldn’t worry if I were you,” Herrick reassured his prisoner.  “Anders will come around.”

“He hates me,” Mitchell repeated with regret, rubbing his face with his gloved hands. 

“Yes, he does,” Herrick confirmed. “He doesn't trust me, he dislikes me, he’s even a little afraid of me… but he will never hate me as much as he hates you.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” the Irishman protested, standing up. “Fine! I lied to him!” he went on. “I didn’t tell him I knew you, or who I used to be, but I don’t deserve all that hatred!”

“Oh John: still playing the victim, I see. You’re incorrigible,” Herrick deadpanned.

Mitchell walked up to the cage’s door. “I have to see him again. Just another five minutes. It’s all I ask.”

 “Yes! Yes, I know. You want Anders,” Herrick replied, with the irritation usually reserved for parents stuck with children throwing tantrums. “You want him with every parcel of your body. This lust for him, it’s the essence that makes you walk and talk, that keeps you from being a cold, dead corpse. You’re ready to do anything to get out of that cage and see Anders again… to have his pretty neck to suck on. Am I right?”

With the short, scraping sound of metal on wood: another chip flew through the grating and landed on Mitchell’s right boot.

“You had a first phase of withdrawal, a physical one, when he first left you,” the older vampire professed. “But it’s not over. I strongly suspect that you’re soon going to enter a mental craving phase, and if you think the first one was bad: you haven’t seen anything yet, my boy. Anders is your twin. Now that you’ve tasted him, you’ll never going to stop craving his blood, and he’s never going to stop craving yours: isn’t that good news?”

“No…. that’s not….” Mitchell whispered. He stepped back until his shoulders collided with the opposite wall and he let himself slid down to a sitting position again. Having Anders coming back to him only for coupling: he hated this idea. They were better than that. What they had together: it was more than mere hunger.

From where he sat, Herrick seemed to pity him. “You didn’t think you were actually in love with Anders, did you?” he asked.

Mitchell’s silence spoke volume.

“Oh… you did,” Herrick murmured in realization. His shoulders started shaking, and soon, he was seized by a fit of thunderous laughter. Head thrown back, he laughed for a long minute. “My poor Mitchell. How naive of you,” Herrick sneered, drying tears of laughter from his face.

“You don’t understand,” Mitchell growled. “You don’t know what happened between us. It was not only about the blood-“

“Of course it’s about the blood, you idiot!” Herrick interrupted him. “You’ve been a vampire for more than a century. I thought you’ve caught up on that already: it’s always about the blood.”

By letting George kill Herrick, Mitchell had thought he would free himself. He was wrong. He had never been free and he realized it now more than ever.

“Alright,” Mitchell decided. He rose, dusted his jeans, straightened his jacket and moved back to the cage’s door, stepping in pieces of potatoes and corn on his way. ”I’ll be your vice-president, your poster-boy. That’s what you want, right?  I’ll do it… if you let me out of that cage.”

Carefully, Herrick put the stake and the knife down. He rose as well. Mitchell was several inches taller, but it was not hard to tell who was dominating the other. “Wow! That’s a pretty drastic change of discourse,” Herrick remarked.  ”You’ll be the villain now, then?”

Gripping through the steel mesh, Mitchell rested his forehead over it with a deep sigh. “Christ. You said it yourself: I always was.”

Herrick approached his face so close their noses were nearly touching. “Prove it,” he challenged. “Everyone has weaknesses, Mitchell. Loyalties that put them in jeopardy.” He squatted down to his stake back, threw it in the air like a juggler and caught it with expert ease. “I think it would be an interesting experience to make you choose between your friends and your coupling mate,” he said, pointing at Mitchell with the sharp end of the stake, “But then again, I already know what your pick would be.”

“Get me out, Herrick!” Mitchell bellowed rattling the structure with all his strength. ”Get me out of that fucking cage!!!”

“I’m sorry, Mitchell. You’re on my strings now, and I can make you dance, as long as I want.”

***

It was impossible, from inside the warehouse, to tell if it was the day or the night since  the high, narrow windows were blocked with wood paneling.  The only thing that cheated on complete darkness was the red glow of the exit sign.

In prisons, this was the punishment usually reserved to misbehaving prisoners: being locked up in seclusion, somewhere they could not see the daylight. They lost sense of time, and then of reality. Mitchell was scared madness would jump at his throat sooner than he expected. Already, he was shredding patches of himself.

He had no intention to sleep, but had still opted for a lying position to the concrete floor, his jacket as a makeshift pillow.

What obsessed him at the moment was the gnawing thought of Herrick’s last moments in that cell of the hospital’s basement; before George transformed and tore him apart. _“We are vampires, we have all the time in the world. Do it!”_ These had been his last words. Herrick hadn’t shown fear or even reluctance in the face of death. He was embracing it like someone who knew it would only be a temporary state. He was confident that there was a way to come back, and that Mitchell would be the one providing it.

If the whole “twin vampires” business was utter nonsense, Herrick sure as hell believed it, and Mitchell started to think that he should too. If his and Anders’ combined fluids had the propriety to make other vampires defeat death and become invulnerable, Herrick would do everything in his power to keep them both around and milk them from their blood like industrial cows. They were valuable assets to Herrick’s revolution indeed, if he had the intention to breed a new superior race of vampires through them.  Mitchell doubted Anders would want to have anything to do with him after the fight they had, but then again, all Herrick had to do was wait that they get crazy with lust for each other and lock them up together in the cage and wait for nature to take its course. Then, Herrick would use their blood to feed the older vampire or use them to recruit new ones.

Mitchell felt sick to his stomach.

He preferred that Anders kept on hating him of his own accord than want him against his will. But if they were left together in an enclosed space, would Mitchell be able to resist his mate? The mere idea of having Anders within his grasp again induced such a strong reaction in his body that he seriously doubted he would have enough self restraint.

He screwed his eyes shut to beat the images back, but they stubbornly stayed there: even more vivid for being in the blackness of his mind.

A shuffling sound, barely audible, like a little mouse running on the floor, stirred Mitchell from his musings. He risked an eye open and saw that he was no longer alone in his cage. At the other end of his prison stood a young woman in a grey lace dress, with a candle in her hand.

When he sat up, she took two steps back, eyes wide.

Mitchell stared at the frightened apparition in disbelief. How did she get into the cage with him? Did she have a key?  Her face, framed with blond locks was oddly familiar. He had seen her already.

Apart from the light of the candle, she seemed to irradiate her own light: a soft one, like the very first rays of sun of a fresh winter morning. It reminded him of Annie.

 _Of course._ She did not need a key to get into the cage. She was a ghost. And he remembered now where he had first seen her: in Whitfield church, walking by his mate’s side. 

Anders’ girl was a ghost, after all. He couldn’t help being surprised. He had somehow assumed Anders would be with someone with whom he could have real physical and sexual contacts. Once again, it showed how little he truly knew the other vampire.

“You must be Dawn,” Mitchell said in a hushed tone, not to scare the curious ghost more than she already was.

“I am,” she replied, her voice a little unsteady.

“Where is Anders?” Mitchell inquired.

“Asleep.”

Mitchell wondered how much she knew about Anders and him, but now was maybe not the best time to find out. “You should not be here,” he observed. “He strictly forbade me to speak to you. He would not be happy if he knew.”

“Anders doesn’t control me. I do what I want.”  A flicker of light from the candle brushed across her facial features and Mitchell could see the fierceness and independence in them.

“What do you want from me?”

“You’re Big Bad John.”

“Oh. You’re here to see the celebrity,” Mitchell snorted. “Well, you’re wasting your time. I don’t sign autographs,” he added in a grunt. 

“I’m here to understand,” she corrected. 

“Understand what?”

“The hold you have on him.”

Mitchell let out a bitter chuckle. “Hadn’t Herrick told you? He’s only longing for my blood. He’s my twin. He’s bound to crave it.”

The answer  did not seem to satisfy Dawn completely. “I doubt it explains everything.”

She blew the candle, but Mitchell, being a vampire, could still see her contours and even the expression of her face in the almost darkness.He watched her mutely for a moment, unwilling to give more explanations, if he could find some. He wasn’t sure yet how much she knew or how much he was ready to share.

“He loves you?” he asked her suddenly.  She seemed confused so he repeated his question. “Anders: does he love you?”

She tilted her head to the side like an attentive owl. “I think he does,” she said, “in his own way.”

Mitchell nodded. “That’s good. You’re lucky. It’s way better than nothing.”  He rubbed his hands together: an illusionary attempt at warming them up. “I was jealous, you know, when I saw your name on his phone while you were trying to reach him,” he confided. He unfolded his long legs and lay down on the floor again. “He never even gave me his phone number,” Mitchell regretted. “He did not trust me enough.”

The Irishman was speaking to himself more than he spoke to her. For all he knew, he could well be alone in his cage and she, just a creation of his mind.  “I don’t know if I’m still jealous,” he pondered out loud. “I don’t think so. I don’t feel like I deserve him anymore.” He turned his head to look at her again. “I guess one has to believe they deserve their lover to feel possessive of them, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” Dawn admitted. “My affection for him doesn’t have anything to do with possessiveness.” Drops of melted wax from the candle crashed to the floor.

Mitchell gulped. She made him ashamed of himself: of what he was. Just as he had always had a hard time keeping sex and blood as two separated things, he seemed to have forgotten that love and lust weren’t always one and the same. “That’s a rare and precious thing that you have, then,” Mitchell whispered. “Now that I think about it, that’s probably the vampire part of me that wanted him to be mine. The human side of me, the little that still exists, just wanted him to be happy. I guess it’s just another expression of selfishness in a sense: I want to be the one making him feel happy and safe.” He bit the inside of his cheek until he drew pearls of blood between his teeth. “I’m glad he has you,” he finally said. “You can offer him something purer than I ever could.”

Herrick might be right, after all. Anything Mitchell could give to Anders would always be stained with blood. It was as inevitable as the coming of the next full moon.

A long silence fell on the warehouse as Dawn had abstained from letting her thoughts known for some time. “I imagined you’d be… meaner,” she confessed after a while. 

"Being mean is tiring,” Mitchell stated. “I don't have that much energy to waste anymore."  He rolled onto his side, exposing his back to her like a wall: clear indication that the conversation was over. 

It’s only when he was sure she was gone that he allowed himself to weep.

 

*******

 

 

_Anders in his khaki soldier uniform, Anders naked in freshly washed cotton bedsheets, Anders in a used t-shirt, smiling over the rim of a coffee mug, Anders in a black suit with a matching black tie, under a black umbrella. The umbrella falls and rolls away, carried by the wind. His eyes: two blue topaz in a gold jewelry box. Something too priceless to be named. Anders puts his hand over Mitchell’s chest, and then, Mitchell feels it: a real, fluttering human heart: rapid, fragile. It’s not a vision of the future, it’s not a memory or even a dream. It’s nothing. It’s a hallucination, caused by the loneliness, the confinement and the anguish._

 

Mitchell tossed and turned, groaned and kicked. He could not fall asleep nor stay truly awake. His dark curls were damp with sweat and his flannel shirt stuck to his back like one giant leech. He was not quite aware of the physical discomfort, however. The mental struggle dominated everything else.

He crawled to the wall of the cage and used it to pull himself on his feet like a drunken man. He was under the impression that his mate’s scent surrounded him, forced its way through his nostrils and into his brain. It captured and trapped his imagination in erotic visions of bloodied kisses and grasping caresses.

“Mitchell!”

Now he heard his voice as well.

“Mitchell!”

The second call of his name was like an electric shock. It was not an illusion this time. The other side of the metal mesh, Anders was searching through his trousers’ pocket. He seemed nervous and in a haste.

Strength and tonus had come back in Mitchell’s legs at once. It was enough to make him reach the cage’s door. “Listen, I know what you think,” Mitchell said, slurring his words. “He is powerful: he is one of the old ones and your venom-father. He’s the last thing you have resembling a family. I’ve been seduced by that as well in the past. But trust me, the longer you stay around the most difficult it’s going to be to get out of his grip.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I’m not like you,” Anders snapped. “I won’t be Herrick’s puppet, but I won’t be a slave to your blood either.” Having found the desired object in his pocket, he unlocked the door with it.  “That’s why I’m freeing you: so you get the hell away from here, away from me.”

At first, Mitchell didn’t dare step out. “How did you get the keys?”

“I have a ghost,” Anders replied, pulling him out of the cage by the sleeve of his shirt. With that gesture, he had involuntarily brought Mitchell into his personal space. They were so close Anders had to lift his chin to look at the taller vampire.

“Is that really what you want: that I leave and never come back?” Mitchell asked. Anders’ lips were pressed together in determination and discontent. Mitchell wouldn’t have to move much to be able to kiss them, but he knew the embrace would not be welcomed. “Is that really what you want?” he repeated, his voice breaking.

Anders seemed to hesitate, but then, he firmly pushed Mitchell back.

“Say it!” Mitchell demanded, louder.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Anders growled. “You want us to have a chit chat until Herrick and the others get here? Just go,” he told him, in a tone that failed at acquiring the commanding quality he had wished to give it.

“I want to hear you say that it’s over!” Mitchell insisted, taking the smaller vampire by the shoulders. “I want to see it in your eyes!”

The trouble Anders felt from witnessing Mitchell’s distress became evident. He still scowled at him. “Don’t you see that I’m trying to free you from me as well? Take your hands off me and get out while you still can!”

Mitchell stayed put. “Come with me. We’ll run away together.”

Anders vamped out, bared his fangs and snarled.  “I said: get out!” he barked, as if the snarl itself was not clear enough already.

Realizing there was nothing more he could say or do to convince his mate to follow him, Mitchell let go of the firm and compact shoulders and headed for the warehouse’s back door without a look back, as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. Anders had given him freedom as a last poisonous gift. He had little choice but to accept it.

Mitchell stumbled outside in the alleyway. He hissed between his teeth when the radiant sun blinded him. Even someone who wasn’t a vampire would have suffered from the change of light. To Mitchell, it felt like his eyeballs were plunged into boiling oil. He wasted vital time staggering around between a dumpster and a delivery truck, trying to figure out how to get to the street. It’s only when a car honked and its driver cursed at him that he realized he had already reached it.

 

*******

Dawn stood from where she sat on the camp bed when she saw Anders come in.

Her boss had been turned into a vampire at the age of thirty-seven, but right now, he looked ten years older. His shoulders were hunched and his face paler than usual.

Slowly, as if every move cost him, he shrugged his suit jacket off and tossed it on a nearby chair. “I did it. I did as you advised me,” he told her.  

“Is he gone?”

“Yes. He made it outside. Nobody saw him, or me.” 

 “Are you alright?” 

 He shook his head in denial as only answer.

Without a word more, she dragged him into a hug.

 

***

Herrick was whistling a song that was long out of fashion. He busied himself by emptying his latest victim from its last ounces of blood into a thermos cup. The prey: a young, comatose rent-boy, agonized cleanly and in silence on the carpet of his office, for which the vampire was grateful.

When the whistled song reached the first notes of the chorus, Herrick grabbed a letter opener. Now was the time to add the secret ingredient. He rolled up his sleeve, cut his forearm and let exactly six drops of his blood fall into the cup. Satisfied, he wiped the blade on his police uniform trousers, he screwed the lid back in place and shook the mix. The action brought back a twisted fondness to his memory. It was not the first time he spiked a cup of blood with a bit of his own.

He was unrolling his sleeve when he heard hasty footsteps rushing toward his door.

Knocking before entering was a concept unknown to Seth, but even if he had had a sense of common decency, the vampire would have probably still barged in this time. Seth’s eyes were injected with blood and his nostrils flaring with alarm when he got in. “Mitchell escaped!” he exclaimed, and threw the Irishman’s dark jacket on top of Herrick’s desk as a proof.

The vampire king gave the jacket and his henchman a collected and unimpressed glance.  “I doubt it.”

“That’s true!” Seth insisted. “The cage’s empty!” 

“Yes, I got that, but he did not escape: someone freed him.”

Seth threw a look around, as if the culprit could only hide in Herrick’s office. “Who?”

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“What should we do?” Seth asked, bouncing in his feet. “He is not gone for long. We can still run after him.”

Herrick sat back in his leather chair. “I already know where he is heading:  the pink house on Windsor terrace.”

“Perfect, then. We send a few of our guys to get him!”

"No need. I know Mitchell." The older vampire sucked on his teeth and clicked his tongue. “Let me tell you what will happen: first, he is going to cut himself from his precious friends, then , when he won’t be able to cope with the loneliness and that he’ll be sufficiently in heat not to be able to take it anymore, trust me, he’s going to crawl back here for Anders, with his tail between his legs.” A drop of blood had left a dark trail to the side of the cup. Herrick wiped it with his index finger. Seth followed the gesture and licked his lips. He secretly hoped the content of the thermos was for him.

“There are still things I don’t understand about John Mitchell,” Herrick continued, “but I know one thing for sure: he always comes back. Even more so now that we have the thing he wants the most.”

“So you intend to do nothing?” Seth asked, unsure. He had not listened to everything his boss said. The blood had distracted him.

“Exactly,” Herrick confirmed. “I won’t lift a finger.” He handed the cup to Seth with a last request before he dismissed him: “Bring that to Anders: he must be starving.”

 

 

 

 


	13. A Lullaby for Nights of Cheap Gin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took me a while to update. Life and holidays delayed the writing process. 
> 
> My eternal gratitude to Katyushha for the support and help.

George fiddled with the keys, trying to balance three grocery bags in his arms. He uttered a victorious grunt when he succeeded in unlocking the front door, but as soon as he stepped inside, he was assailed by a distressed ghost.

“It’s Mitchell. I think he’s gone crazy again,” Annie alerted him, pulling on his sleeve to draw him to the stairs, not caring about the precarious fate of the groceries.   

“Mitchell’s here? He’s back?” George exclaimed, escaping her grip to put the bags to relative safety on an armchair nearby.

“He’s in your room: packing yours and Nina’s things,” she said, hurling him toward the staircase.

“What the-” George muttered under his breath as he consented to go upstairs and see what was going on with their resident vampire. He found his bedroom door ajar. Shuffling sounds of plastic bags and the thuds of drawers being precipitately opened and slammed closed proved that Annie was not exaggerating.

“Mitchell? What are you doing?” George asked, half-scolding, half-worried.

“Good, you’re here,” Mitchell noted, still packing George’s clothes into garbage bags.  The vampire’s hair was disheveled, as if he had had to fight a whole flock of birds.

“Where is Nina?”

“At the hospital, working.  Why?” George was unsure yet how to react to his friend’s troubling behavior. Behind him, Annie was watching the scene with growing anxiety.

“Okay, you’ll pick her up on the way,” Mitchell decided.

The vampire’s eyes were still brown and not two abysses of darkness, indicating that his frantic hurry didn’t have anything to do with blood lust. George wasn’t sure if it was good news or if this state hid something even worse.

The Irishman shoved a bag of clothes into George’s arms. “You have to go, now… leave…” he ordered.

George nearly lost his balance.  “What? Why? What’s going on?”

“We’ve been looking for you for two days,” Annie added, anger sharpening the edges of her voice. “Where the hell were you?”  

Mitchell was about to throw a deodorant and a book into a cardboard box, but instead, he put the box away on the bed and he stopped packing to scan his friends’ expressions. “Herrick’s back,” he said gravely.   

There was a moment of stunned silence, until their brain cells caught up on the meaning of those words. Annie squeaked  in panic.

“Herrick’s back? When? How’s that even possible?” George wanted to know.

Mitchell regretted having to bring them such news. “He used Anders’ blood in a sort of ritual… but that’s not the point!” he exclaimed, agitated again. “The point is that you have to get the fuck out of Bristol, and stay out of the cities! He’s not joking: he’ll come after you and Nina, and even Annie. You have to take her with you.”

“No way!” George groaned, shoving the bag back into Mitchell’s arms. “I’m not leaving unless you give me explanations that are not hallucinating ramblings about Herrick’s being alive.”

“And in case you don’t remember: I’m a haunter,” Annie pointed out. “I haunt this house. If I leave, I’m going to fade,” she added, stepping forward as if to shield George from the vampire’s folly. “This… This is utterly mental. We’re not even having this conversation!”

Mitchell took her by the shoulder to keep her steady, even though he was trembling himself with the urgency of the situation. He did not address to her, but to the werewolf. “George! You are my friend, right?”

“Always.”

“And you trust me.”  

This time, the answer was a little hesitant.  “Yes.”  

“Then you must do as I say. If you love Nina and Annie, you have to take them away from Herrick… away from me even.” He dreaded to be left all alone, but he had to do what was best for them. “Being around me is not safe anymore.”

Annie pushed Mitchell away and hit his chest with her fist in denial and frustration. “Don’t say things like that!”

He stepped back, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”   

“Herrick’s alive…” Realization finally hit George for real and his face lost all colors, “and I was the one who killed him. He must not be very happy with me.”

“No. He’s not happy,” Mitchell emphasized, eager to see his friends see sense.

The werewolf looked around, consternate, at all his possessions stacked into plastic bags.  “Where… where should I go?”  

“Anywhere, as long as it is far from here. I give you my car,” Mitchell offered. “You can go to Scotland maybe. No!” he stopped himself. “Don’t tell me where you are going. This way, I won’t be able to tell anybody, even if I’m tortured.”

“Mitchell, you are scaring me,” Annie hiccupped.

“Not so long ago, I swore to you both that the uncontrollable blood rage would not happen again,” Mitchell reminded them. “Well, I’m not sure I can keep that promise anymore. There are a lot of chances that it happens again, and this time, I’m afraid I’ll break more than a mug and a guitar. Herrick’s not the only one you should be wary of.”

He was afraid to look at his friends now. He had dreaded their incomprehension, their anger… but he dreaded their hurt and sadness even more. He crossed his arms and dropped his gaze to protect himself.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw George lean down and take as many bags as he could carry. “Fine. If you say that this is the only solution, then we will go,” the werewolf murmured.

Mitchell nodded, still staring at the floor’s planking.

“How can you let him do such a thing!? How the hell can you agree with that?” Annie yelled at George, before she vanished into thin air. From the clattering sound of dishes that followed immediately, all the way from downstairs, they knew that she had gone to the kitchen to vent.   

“I guess all I can do now is start putting those bags in your car,” George remarked in a stern voice.

“Good call,” Mitchell approved and he stormed out to go fetch his car keys from his own bedroom.

“Someone has to convince Annie,” the werewolf pointed out when Mitchell came back. The clattering of pots and utensils had only intensified and they both jumped when the door of George’s bedroom slammed shut on its own. The whole house was resounding with Annie’s anguish.

“I’ve got this,” Mitchell sighed. He put the keys into George’s hand and patted him on the shoulder with a forced smile before he headed downstairs.

On the first floor, all the lights were flashing like mad fireflies and when he entered the kitchen, Mitchell had to step aside to avoid being hit by the fridge door. He ducked a fork flying from the sink.

“Annie! Please, stop!” he begged her. He crouched down and crossed the kitchen like a soldier trying to be as low and small a target as possible.

The ghost was curled against the foot of the kitchen counter, sobbing into her hands. When he reached her, Mitchell enveloped that little ball of fury into his arms and held her tight until she calmed down somewhat and the cupboard doors, the pots and the pans were finally motionless and silent.

“I can’t! I don’t want to leave!” she cried into the shoulder of his plaid shirt. “This is my house! I can’t leave! I’m going to disappear! Nobody will be able to see me. I won’t exist anymore. I’ll be trapped in limbo.”  

“No you won’t,” Mitchell reassured her, petting her hair. “You chose to be a haunter, because of what happened to you here, but you can make a different choice now. You can choose to be George’s guardian ghost if that’s what you wish.”

She lifted her chin to look at him and sniffled. “You think so?”

He tucked a curly strand behind her ear. “You can do anything.” He had to believe it as well, because for her to stay here was not an option. If she stayed attached to the house, Herrick could well burn it to the ground, and then, she would be truly condemned to an eternity in limbo. She had to find something else to keep her tangible.

Herrick’s words were like a death toll every time they played in Mitchell’s mind: _“I think it would be an interesting experience to make you choose between your friends and your coupling mate. But then again, I already know what your pick would be.”_

The idea of being confronted with such a dilemma terrified him. He couldn’t put his friends’ fate in the balance. His vampire instincts would inevitably choose his mate… but what would his conscience decide? Would he even be able to exercise any form of conscience in such a situation? Asking him to choose between sacrificing Anders or Annie and George was like making him decide whether he wanted to have an arm or a leg chopped off.

Meanwhile, Annie was still sobbing in his arms. “Why don’t you come with us?” she asked him.

He shook his head and touched her cheek. Despite her abundant tears, his hand remained dry. “That would be a very bad idea,” he sighed. “If I stay with you both, Herrick will find us.” Herrick would not hesitate to use Anders to get to him, and Mitchell knew he was powerless against such schemes. He had thought about every possibility when he had walked back to the house after his escape from B. Edwards, and as much as it pained him, as much as it tore his own heart apart, it was the only one that could insure their safety.  

Slowly and carefully, he helped her up, back on her feet and with both of her hands in his, he guided her to the front door. He pushed it open and Annie backed off, as if the world outside would swallow her.

“I can’t leave here. I can’t! I’d lose myself. I’d become nothing. I can’t do that,” she repeated again.

Mitchell rubbed her arm soothingly. “Of course you can: you are way more powerful than you think,” he assured her.

George, back from Mitchell’s car where he had finished packing his things, waited for Annie outside, just the other side of the doorframe that had taken a luminescent, spectral glow. The invisible energy frontier that had kept Annie bound to the house was suddenly visible to all of them, as she was fighting against it.

Annie was crushing Mitchell’s forearm where she had found purchase, refusing to make a step through the door.

“You’ve got to try, Annie. Please,” he encouraged her. “Do it for me… do it for George.”

Her face was bathed in tears and Mitchell regretted he had to make her do that.

George had outstretched his hand, to help her cross the threshold.

“Do you want me to be your guardian, George?” she quaked.

“Yes, I do, if that’s what you want as well.”

With a shout of mixed resolution and pain, she let go of Mitchell’s arm, took George’s offered hand and took the final step across the ghostly barrier that evaporated immediately.

“I did it!” she exclaimed, hugging George in relief.

With a knot in his throat, Mitchell joined them outside and pulled them both into his arms. “You did it. I’m so proud of you,” he congratulated Annie, pressing a kiss to her evanescent hair.  

“Mitchell, is this the last time we see you?” George asked, his own eyes misting with tears.

“I’m afraid so,” the vampire confirmed, mirroring his best friend’s expression.

They hugged for a long minute, not caring what the neighbors would think about their display of collective affection.

“Take care of each other, okay? As a last favor to me,” Mitchell enjoined them, his voice thick with the tears he forced himself to swallow.   

They nodded their agreement, tongue-tied by sorrow. When they finally parted, George squeezed the Irishman’s elbow. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t manage to utter a word. As the ghost and the werewolf crossed the street to Mitchell’s car, Annie kept peeking at him above her shoulder. She seemed to expect that he would change his mind any second and call them back.

He wished he could.  

Mitchell stepped to the middle of the street to watch them go and Annie stared back at him through the window of the old Austin, until it turned onto William Street and they lost sight of each other.

The vampire went back to the house and curled up on the couch with a shiver. The atmosphere was different. It was cold and empty in here. The house had lost its soul. There were only Mitchell’s own demons to haunt it now.

 

***

“He’s a dangerous man, Anders,” Dawn reminded her boss. He was pacing in his bedroom, showing an advanced state of anxiousness edging on remorse, which was unlike his usual laid-back personality. His second thoughts about having freed Mitchell couldn’t fail to worry her. “Back in Auckland, my poltergeist energy was starting to decrease,” she added. “Olaf said it was because you were in danger and you were with him at the time.”

Anders stopped in his tracks and looked back at her. “What if I like being in danger, then?”

Dawn pulled a face. “Well, I surely don’t like it.”

He put his hands flat on the wall and bent his head forward. “What you don’t seem to understand is that, to me, it never felt that way. I never felt unsafe with him. If anything, it was the exact opposite. I protected him, he protected me, no questions asked. Maybe it was just a part of his plan to gain my trust, but since he left, I’ve never felt so…”  He struggled to find the right word. “…exposed…” he finally uttered, conscious that the expression did not encompass the half of what he truly felt.   

He straightened up and Dawn walked up to him. She put her arms around him from behind and rested her chin on top of his shoulder. “I’m here. I’m looking after you.”  

He sighed. “Yeah. I know. I would probably go crazy if you weren’t there.” He lifted his eyes to the cracks in the concrete ceiling: an apocalyptical vision. The room looked more like a bunker than the basement of a funeral home. “It’s this place: it messes with my head.”  If Anders was true to himself, he would admit that he craved a kind of comfort only one person was able to give him. Despite his best efforts to suppress this need, he longed for Mitchell’s presence, by his side, into his veins.

Dawn was no fool. She sensed it, but she was also afraid. She had convinced Anders to free Mitchell in order to keep them away from each other. She dreaded that if they were at arm length again, they would drag each other straight into the darkest pits of brutality. Anders knew it as well, but his resolution weakened.

“Could it be the craving for his blood that messes with your head?” she asked him, somewhat tentative.

Anders shook his head, more from confusion than denial. “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

She rested her cheek to the side of his neck in an attempt to console him. She was not immune to guilt either. If Anders, knowing the risks, still wanted to be with his former mate, who was she to keep them apart? But did he really want it, or was it only the hunger and bestiality in him talking? Was it her duty, as his guardian ghost, to also preserve him from himself? “I saw Mitchell. I spoke to him,” she reminded him in a soft tone. “I understand the appeal, you know: the bad-boy looks, the curly hair, the Irish accent and the green eyes.”  

He evaded her embrace to sit on the bed. “Hazel. He has hazel eyes, actually,” he corrected her without even thinking, and now, he stared into the void, unreachable.   

Dawn felt powerless to soothe his pain, because she was not able to even understand the nature of it. Everything pointed toward the fact that, from the start, Mitchell had been using Anders to increase his power and become the new king of Bristol after he had murdered the previous one. And when Dawn had confronted Mitchell, she had surprised herself by feeling compassion for the caged man. He seemed to have entertained a genuine attachment for Anders. Dawn had tried to convince herself that this was nothing but a show. Vampires were experts in manipulation, after all. But Anders’ distress triggered doubts in her mind, all over again.

“He thinks we are a couple,” she said, bringing up something that still troubled her.

Anders gave her an absent glance and remained mute.

“You did not try to contradict him on that point,” she remarked.  

“Neither did you,” Anders pointed out.

She pinched her lips. “That’s not my place to do such a thing.”

Anders waved his hand with irritation. “I don’t have to justify myself. Not to you anyway.” He let himself fall back onto the mattress and lay there, motionless.

His closed and stubborn behavior could have made her huffy, but she was a guardian angel, naturally inclined to compassion and understanding. She sat by him and ran her fingers through his hair. He barely reacted.

“You miss him already.”

He took his time before replying.  “I’m not sure ‘missing’ is the right term, but, as insane as it sounds, we were good together: in a weird, twisted and bloody kind of way….”

***

For about a week, Mitchell convinced himself he could stay alone in the house. But slowly, the emptiness of it, the memories of friendship and joy forever spoilt, started creeping inside his soul like pest.

Annie’s mugs were still on the shelves above the sink. George had left some of his belongings behind, and every time Mitchell laid his eyes on Italian or Czech books that belonged to the werewolf, his throat constricted. The loss was still too fresh not to hurt as cruelly as it did in the first seconds of separation.

Mitchell now knew what it felt like to be a ghost and wander, unseen and unloved, around the material evidences of happier days. It was incredibly sad and lonely. Even his reflection in the mirror had deserted him.

All he could do was drift from room to room in an endless game of hide and seek. He hid from himself and sought comfort, but it turned out to be a fruitless chase since he did not achieve the former nor the latter. He was also the one being haunted, by persistent visions that became more and more harassing as days passed.

Herrick was right. The mental craving was far worse than the physical one.

He discovered that there was nothing worse than longing for someone who hated you and loved someone else. Anders had Dawn. He would never need Mitchell as much as Mitchell needed him. _“I am an animal,”_ Mitchell thought, _“and not in the best of ways, while Anders is clever and sophisticated. How could I think, even for a second, that he would want to be with someone like me?”_ He could only understand why Anders would prefer someone pure, a cute angel like Dawn, to an unkempt hobo like him.

Hours and hours of isolation kept adding links to the heavy chain of his self-destructive thoughts. He came to the conclusion that it was the house’s fault – that he would feel better somewhere else, anywhere else. His friends were gone. He had to move on as well. It would not do well to anybody to keep being trapped here. His last hope resided in yet another escape.

In a khaki backpack, exchanged with a pack of cigarettes to a veteran of the Korean War thirty years ago, he shoved three pairs of jeans and four t-shirts, a leather belt, his tin tobacco box, a lighter, a compilation CD of The Doors and his favorite DVD of Laurel and Hardy. The last thing he did was pulling from underneath his bed a black suitcase. He had found it in Anders’ abandoned SUV in Dublin. It contained two sharp stakes and an injector pen that he put in his backpack with the rest. The suitcase was carefully placed back under the bed.

He left just after nightfall.

He had no idea where to go, but at this stage, it did not matter. The most important thing was to get out of here.

As he walked away with his backpack slung over his shoulder, he threw a last look at the pink house. The windows on the second floor were like two black eyes frowning at him in reproach.

***

To be fair, Anders half-expected his little scheme to get busted anytime. Surely, Herrick would discover that he was the one who made Mitchell escape. In truth, it was not so hard to fathom. Dawn had helped him, and all Anders wished for was that Herrick’s contempt would not be unleashed on her.

Anders had freed his former mate eight days ago and Herrick had still showed no sign of resentment toward him, or anybody else, for that matter. He had treated Anders in the same amicable way he did since he had come back from the dead. Either Herrick was completely oblivious about it and rather dumb, which Anders doubted, or he did not care that Mitchell was on the loose, which he doubted also.    

The whole thing threatened to drive him crazy. He kept thinking back of his last moments with Mitchell. He still thought of his failure to comply when the younger vampire had demanded that Anders look at him and confirm that it was indeed over between them. He wondered if Mitchell had hope or if the rejection, the pain and the hurt he had inflicted on him still made his cheek hollowed and his lips thin.

Anders was not able to get rid of the feeling of ‘responsibility’ that he had toward the brunet. He knew he had been disloyal and selfish, to allow a bond that strong to be born between them, only to act like it never existed at the first occasion. But even if Anders had wanted to deny its existence: it was too late. The bond had been accepted by both parties at their first hunt together and had been consensually sealed by their coupling afterward. As long as Mitchell would be on this earth, the bond would stay alive: they’d be connected mentally, physically and (that was the part that scared Anders the most) emotionally also.

The physical closeness was the one Anders missed the most. Every parcel of himself was constantly screaming their need for Mitchell’s body. He was angry with Mitchell still, and felt betrayed, but it was like this ire was just a powerful fuel for the fire of his sexual appetite.

Dawn’s presence and support was the only thing that kept him grounded. She was there when he fell asleep, there when he woke up, and it kept the loneliness at bay.

She tried to hold him back by the hand when a vampire woman came to his bedroom to tell Anders that Herrick wished to see him. _That’s it,_ he thought. _I’m going to get punished for what I’ve done._ He was ready to accept it. Usually, he would have searched any way possible to avoid the consequences of his actions, but being here, fed fresh blood every day, it made him soft and docile.

He had seen a few times the female vampire who escorted him to Herrick’s office. He could not remember her name and wondered if she had ever told him. She could have been easy on the eye, if she didn’t sport this perpetually subdued air.

“I’m Lauren,” she said, when she caught him looking at her sideways.  

“Nice to meet you,” he replied, out of politeness. He wished it would be the end of their conversation, because something about her made him uneasy.  

Unfortunately for him, she apparently had more to share.  “John Mitchell’s my venom-father, you know, which makes you my uncle, I guess.”  

Anders walked faster, hoping they would reach Herrick’s office before she found herself more things in common with him.

“Mitchell and I were co-workers, when I was still human,” Lauren went on. “I fancied him and I was over the moon the day he asked me out for a drink. We went to my flat and while we were having sex, he killed me. Guilt made him turn me into a vampire, but he never intended to take care of me afterward. He abandoned me right after, like the selfish arsehole he is. It’s Herrick who sheltered me since Mitchell did not give a fuck.”

They stopped in front of the office’s door. “Why are you telling me all this?” Anders asked her. He had gotten way more information that he had ever asked for.  

“Because I hope you’re going to break his fucking heart just like he broke mine.”

And with that, she turned on her heels and was gone.

Anders did not give the time to his mind to wrap around her provocative words. He knocked on the door and Herrick’s voice allowed him to come in.

The king of Bristol greeted him with a smile and offered him a seat. Anders sat straight and uptight into the chair. Herrick did not look like someone who was about to pronounce a verdict and a sentence. He put an empty glass in front of Anders. “A drink?”

The pleasant smell of blood tingled Anders’ nose. “No, thanks.”   

“I insist.”

Herrick poured him a generous quantity of blood from a carafe. Then, he waited, until Anders accepted to wet his lips in the coppery substance.

“I did not mean to hear your conversation with Lauren, but I caught your last exchange,” Herrick confessed, after Anders had taken a few sips and started to relax.

“She seems to be holding some grudge against her venom-father,” the Kiwi remarked, carefully avoiding to name Mitchell.

“She has good reasons to do so,” the older vampire affirmed. “What she told you is the truth. When she woke up, she called for him, but he was not there. He never was there for Lauren. We picked up the pieces the best we could.” He shook his head, looking sincerely sorry for her sake. “The thing with Mitchell is that he thinks he’s better than us. He’s been snubbing his nose at my offers for years, as if he was too good to be part of the vampire society. He even gets as insulting as saying that humanity is worth more than we do.”

Anders drank again from his glass: an excuse not to have to reply or comment.

“You must be wondering why I asked to speak to you,” Herrick observed.

Anders put his glass down and nodded. Finally, they got to the real thing.

“I have a mission for you,” Herrick declared. He opened a drawer and took a gun out of it, a five-seven, like the one Anders used to own. He placed on the middle of the desk. “I think you know how to find appropriate bullets for this.”

As a reflex, Anders reached for the grip of the handgun, but Herrick interposed himself and pulled it back to his side of the desk. “I want you to find Mitchell. I’ve heard reports saying that he’s still in Bristol,” he completed.  

Anders’ hand retreated away from the firearm.  “You want me to kill him…”

“No! Of course not! I want you to deliver a message for me,” Herrick specified.  “You see, when I recruited John, I didn’t abandon him. I took care of him, because it was my responsibility. There’ll always be a place for him here. Just like there was one for you: when you came to your senses and stopped hiding from me,” he reminded him. “ ‘ _No one gets left behind_ ’: That’s our motto.  Mitchell made a mistake by trying to kill me, but I’m sure he understands that now, and I think he’d be ready to join our cause. I know he’d do that for you too. I’m ready to start anew. I’m offering him my forgiveness. He only has to take it. That’s what I want you to tell him.”

Anders, however, he was not ready to let his guard down. “Why the gun, then?”  

“As a defensive purpose,” the older vampire specified. He made the gun slide on the flat surface, toward Anders who caught it before it could fall over the edge of the desk. “Didn’t I promise I would insure your safety?” Herrick added. “I’m also going to assign my best man to your protection.”

“What about Colin Gundersen?”

“We keep a close eye on him and his female.”

“He’s on your territory. Why don’t you just kill him right away?” Anders asked.

Herrick smoothed the front of his police uniform. “It’s a delicate matter, and it has to be done in the right way, at the right moment. He’s an Illyrian King, not just any tramp. It’s better for all of us that the war between the Snows and the Illyrians remains a cold one.”

Anders stood from his chair and released the magazine of the handgun. As expected, he found it empty. Wolfshapped bullets on Snow vampires territory were as rare as diamonds in a kindergarten’s sandbox. The vampires of the Snow line favored infighting and had always considered that kind of technology to be a proof of the Illyrians’ cowardice. Though, Anders was pretty sure he knew where he could find Wolfshapped bullets. If that failed, he could always rely on Olaf’s numerous contacts. The weight of the gun in his hand made him feel a little safer already. “Where am I going?”

Herrick gave Anders a piece of paper. “Here is Mitchell’s last known address. You can leave as soon as you wish, but, of course, Dawn stays here.”

“Wh-Why?” Anders blurted out. “Wait a minute, you said you want to insure my safety, and now you don’t allow me to keep my guardian ghost by my side?”

“I only wish to keep her here as a guarantee of your good conduct,” the vampire king explained. “I know it’s you who freed Mitchell, and l’m still waiting for you to prove that I can trust you.”  

 _It’s a test_ , Anders understood. “Fine,” he agreed, clipping the magazine back into the gun in a brisk move.

“Before I let you go. I’m gonna tell you a secret, but I think you already know it,” Herrick added. “Becoming a vampire doesn’t change someone’s personality: it liberates it. A vampire is the only truly free man. All his excesses, they can run amok. He wants a girl: takes twenty. He wants a boy: go for it. The world is his. The only limit is his imagination.”

Herrick kept silent for a few seconds as he gauged the effect of his speech on his venom-child, then, he asked him: “Do you want to be free, Anders?”

“I do.”

***

 

“What do you mean I’m not coming with you?’ ”

“I mean exactly what you just said: you are not coming with me, not this time.”

He had hoped Dawn would not make a fuss about it, but he should have known it was wishful thinking.

Anders strapped his holster around his chest. He had not given up on bringing it with him wherever he went, even after he had to abandon his gun to Felicity Gallagher. Now the holster found its purpose again.  

“You think you can make me stay here?” Dawn thundered. “You think I’m some kind of object you can dispose of at your will.” She stood in the middle of the room, but the bed and the table rattled from the force of her outrage.

The first thing Anders did, once his suit jacket was back on his shoulders, was to try his best to pacify his ghost.  “No, Dawnsie,” he said, imperturbable. “I think you are a reasonable person, who will understand that the reasonable thing to do right now is to stay here.”

“Because Herrick says so?”

“Because I say so. I’ll be alright. I promise. Besides, don’t you sometimes wish you can take holidays from me? This is your chance.”

Dawn took a skeptical look around, at the bare walls of the exiguous, dark room. “Here?”

“Ok, maybe not here,” Anders conceded. “But I promise that after all of this is over, we’ll go somewhere warm, somewhere beautiful. Like Bali. Would you like to go to Bali? I was there in 1946. It was nice back then. I’m sure it still is. The food is amazing: everything is soaked in spice-paste and-”

“Don’t go…” she pleaded him, to interrupt the flow of words coming from her boss’ mouth, that, she knew, was only a device to put her worry to sleep. “I have a bad feeling about it.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll be back before you know it. I’m armed. I won’t be alone. And Herrick has people watching Gundersen’s every move.”

She worried at her lower lip. “Why you? Why doesn’t Herrick send someone else to deliver his _message_?”

He shook his head. “I’ve got to do this.” There was a sort of eager and desperate willpower in the way he stretched his fingers and close them into fists. She realized she would not be able to prevent him from going.

“Be careful.”

The mirage of a smile nestled at the corner of his mouth. “You know my natural tendency toward carefulness, otherwise known as ‘cowardice.’ ”

She arranged the collar of his shirt and straightened his tie. “What do you think will happen if you see him again?”

She was not referring to Colin this time, and Anders understood it from the subtle change in her tone. “Hopefully, nothing. I’ll pass on Herrick’s message and we’ll go on our separate ways.”  Truth be told, he had absolutely no idea how he would handle being in Mitchell’s presence again. Only one thing was certain. He fooled himself by thinking it was going to be that easy.

 

***

Anders was squinting under the shades of his sunglasses, not so much to spare his eyes from the bright light of this January morning, but because of the color of the house he was staring at. He checked the address on his piece of paper again, just in case. Despite Seth having assured him that this was the one, in his head, the idea of Mitchell living in a pink house did not compute.

Seth had knocked on the door and since nobody answered, he was trying to break it down to get in. Anders was growing impatient. At least, the street was quiet and no neighbors had peeked outside their windows yet. It would soon happen, though, if Seth went on with such a lack of subtlety.

Anders finally lost his cool. “Jeezus, step aside or we’re still going to be there in three days.” Seth obeyed with a sulk and when the blond vampire tried the door handle, an optimistic clicking sound came from the lock and the door opened on its own. Anders turned to Seth with a scowl. “You did not check if the door was unlocked before trying to ram it like an imbecile?”

Seth had a nervous shrug. He seemed to expect something menacing to jump at their throat from inside.

“Stop pissing yourself,” Anders told him, “Mitchell’s not here. He has not set foot here for a few days.”

The other vampire’s eyes were going back and forth from Anders’ face to the opened door like ping-pong balls. “How do you know?”

“I just know,” Anders evaded the question. “Stay right here and watch the street. Ring me if someone comes.”

Instantly, by smelling the draft that came from inside the house, he could tell that Mitchell was gone. His scent lingered here, confirming out of any doubt that this had indeed been his home, but the smell was a cold one.

Once inside, Anders carefully closed the door behind him. He was immediately confronted with the hefty silence of the uninhabited home. The air was so still that all feeling of urgency left him, leading way to a curious calmness. He looked down, at the space between his feet, to notice that one tile of the hallway’s floor was cracked.

The staircase was climbing up in the obscurity, but instead of heading there right away, he walked to the kitchen. The curtain of wood beads rustled softly as he went through the doorframe on his right.

The kitchen exhaled an unsettling impression of normality. On the fridge, he found a collection of grocery lists, unpaid bills, postcards, etc.. He carefully unstuck a note and let his eyes travel over the lines of neat handwriting: _“Mitchell, if you want to eat anything contained in this fridge, and that includes the milk for your cereals, you must wash the dishes first. Sincerely. George.”_  Anders stuck the note back on the fridge and took his attention to the table.  Next to a pile of dirty dishes that Mitchell would most likely never wash, lay a greeting card with a big, red heart on its cover. Anders flipped the cover open and read the message inside.

_Happy Birthday, Annie. We’re sorry there were no greeting cards saying “this would be your birthday if you weren’t dead” but we hope you will like this one anyhow. With all our love._

The same “George” as the one from the fridge note had signed the birthday card. From the last fragment of dog scent floating in the house, he might well be the werewolf that had killed Herrick. Anders had not suspected that Mitchell and he were that close. Mitchell had also signed at the bottom. Anders’ finger lingered for a moment on the last “L” of his name, with a tender smile he did not know he was sporting.  He took a deep breath and the smile faded. _“I have a mission,”_ he reminded himself and took the direction of the bedrooms upstairs.

It was not a difficult task to figure out which of the bedrooms was Mitchell’s. The earthy fragrance was the strongest there.

Downstairs, Anders had looked over the pieces of the vampire’s life with his housemates: their friendship, their routine. Here, he was under the impression of truly diving into Mitchell’s intimacy, and, for the first time, he felt like an intruder. On the floor, clothes were piled; books also, vinyl records, some music sheets. Many objects in the room were in a bad shape, as if someone, in an excess of rage, had thrown them across the room. Anders’ throat tightened at the thought.

On the walls, Mitchell had hung posters of the movies and groups he loved and the Kiwi looked at each of them as if visiting a museum.

Anders was starting to pinpoint what made him the most uncomfortable about being here. He had expected Mitchell’s house to be like his own: bare, functional, impersonal. But what he found here was totally different. It did not match with the image he had of Big Bad John: the vampire of Whitfield Church who had reminded everyone, with a certain pride, that he was responsible of thousands of human deaths.

Anders sat down on the bed and ran his hand over the space where Mitchell had lain to sleep.

As he shifted on the mattress, the heel of his shoe knocked over something. A grin of victory spread on Anders’ face. “I knew it,” he rejoiced as he pulled back a suitcase from under the bed.  He opened it, but the fact it was empty did not undermine his enthusiasm in the slightest. He took his retractable stake from his keychain to stab and tear up the inner lining of the suitcase. He retrieved two full cartridges of wolfshapped bullets hidden inside. “Oh my precious little babies. Daddy is really happy to see you both,” he said as he hastened to put the cartridges in the inner pocket of his jacket.  

When Anders came back downstairs, he was astonished to find Seth in the living room, slouched in one of the leather sofas. “What the fuck are you doing? Who’s watching the street now?”

“Relax, there was nobody outside when I came in,” Seth replied. “Besides, I’ve always wondered what it looked like in here.”  

Anders rolled his eyes. “You really are a few cans short of a six-pack, aren’t you?” he told the other vampire, his Irish accent coming back in the heat of the moment.

“Huh?”

Anders pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen,” he began slowly, conscious to adapt his speech to the intellectual inferiority of his interlocutor. “Go back to Herrick and tell him that if he seriously considers you to be the best man he has to assign on a mission, his revolution is not bound to happen any time soon. I prefer riding solo than having to schlep an eejit like you.”

***

The Weston Travelodge Motel was situated a few kilometers outside Bristol and Mitchell had chosen it as his temporary hideaway. To enter the reception building was like being catapulted back into the 1980s.  Here, beige leather armchairs adjoined a set of striped, zebra-like lamps. The wall ornamentation, an abstract geometrical assemblage of turquoise and pink shapes of plastic tiles, matched the dubious color of the linoleum floor. Someone polite would have found here an expression of ‘retro charm’. Someone bluntly honest would have called it “hideous”.  It also smelt like the 1980s, Mitchell noted in passing. A powdery type of perfume had been used to mask the persistent smell of cigar.

Judging by her hairdo, the middle-aged woman at the front desk might have also been the one responsible for the decoration. She introduced herself as “Sandy” when Mitchell arrived, batting her fake lashes. She flirted with him openly; called him ‘darling”, and ‘sweetheart” and Mitchell thought: ” _you could be my great-granddaughter, or my next meal…_ ”

She had only one room left, the last of the row: number 13. “Many clients refuse to take that one,” she informed Mitchell when, once outside, she battled with the key and the lock to show him the room, “because of the number, you know, they are afraid it might bring them bad luck.”

“I’m not of the superstitious kind of blokes,” he assured her. He was certain to be the most terrifying thing around anyways.

The room was small and ugly, but affordable, and it’s all Mitchell cared about. He paid cash for a whole week and once Sandy (who insisted on giving him her personal phone number in case he _needed_ anything _)_ was gone, he dropped his bag on the bed and collapsed at its side on the springy mattress, wondering where his life had taken such a bad turn as for him to end up in a place like this.

One week passed with excruciating slowness. On Friday, he paid Sandy for another week, because he had nowhere else to go and no plan for the future.

He thought staying in the pink house was bad, but here, he hit rock bottom. His days were filled with drinking, smoking and watching TV at a high volume, to muffle the voices in his head and the unwelcome thoughts.

He masturbated too, several times a day, shamelessly sprawled on the bed like the most lascivious of whores. He beat himself off angrily with the ambition of substituting any of his past sexual encounter to the memory of Anders’ mouth, but to no avail. Not only did touching himself failed to bring any physical or mental relief, on the contrary, each time made him feel hungrier, more obsessed and frustrated.

He barely left the room anymore, except for buying cigarettes and an unhealthy amount of cheap gin.

He deviated from his usual course that day to stop by a bookshop. He grabbed the first book that caught his sight and slipped it into his jacket when the cashier wasn’t looking. When you were a mass murderer, theft indeed seemed to be a petty crime in every sense of the word.

It was only when he reached the motel again and dropped the stolen book on his bed that he realized it was a copy of Hemingway’s “ _A_ _Farewell to Arms_ ”: the very same book he was reading at the guesthouse in Dundalk while waiting for Anders to come back to him. History repeated itself. He was still waiting for his mate to reappear, like the poor pathetic sod he was.

In a gesture of sudden fury, he threw the book at the opposite wall.

The book hit the floor and now lay opened, its pages crumpled by the force of the impact. Mitchell eyed it like it was a rabid rodent as he sat on one of the wooden chairs. He popped opened the gin bottle by biting and pulling on the cork with his teeth. He spit the cork out on the table and took a swig directly from the bottle. He had stopped using glasses four days ago. The alcohol burnt its passage down his throat.

Six gulps of spirit later, he took pity on the book and he moved to the other end of the room to gather it in his hands like a bird fallen from its nest. He brought it back and put it down on the table. The book was opened on chapter 4 and the first sentence on which Mitchell laid his eyes was: _“there isn’t always an explanation for everything.”_

He slammed the book shut. He was not ready to accept this verdict when it came to his own life. There must be a subjacent reason for everything that had happened to him so far: a reason why Herrick was the only one who had succeeded to create twins in all of the vampires’ history; a reason why Anders and him were the only ones to have survived. He somehow sensed that his salvation, if he deserved one, resided in the answer to those questions.

Forgetting about the book, Mitchell rolled a cigarette, tucked it between his lips and propped his dirty boots up on the table. The lighter spat sparks between his gloved hands, but after several unsuccessful attempts, Mitchell cursed. It had run out of fuel and it meant that he had to go out again to buy a new one.

He scanned the room, searching for another source of distraction, but soon enough, his mind raced back to the storehouse behind B. Edwards and to the last time he had seen Anders and spoke to him. The gin bottle was still half-full, but his stomach protested and his lungs begged him for smoke.  

He pulled on the curtains just slightly to look outside. The clouds were gone and the sun shone brightly on the wet streets. He rubbed his eyes with a groan and figured out he would have to wait for the night to go out. He crawled into bed and fell asleep unexpectedly.

When he woke up, the green numbers of the alarm clock indicated 1:20AM. Having slept fully dressed, not even bothering taking his boots off, he only had to grab his wallet and zip his leather jacket before he left.

The supermarket was closed, but Mitchell knew he could take the chance to venture to the convenient store. The kid at the check-out was so tired and bored at this hour of the night that he had his eyes scotched to his phone and did not throw a single look at the surveillance cameras or even at his customer until the dark-haired man cleared his throat. The kid had his attention back to his game of Candy Crush a second after Mitchell had gotten his receipt. The teenager did not know from what peril he had escaped, since the vampire, as he pushed the door to exit the store, was thinking about how easy it would have been to kill him and get a mid-night snack at his life’s expense.

Once outside, Mitchell lit his cigarette and took a long drag. He closed his eyes with a bitter bliss as the smoke finally filled his lungs. It managed to make him forget the wet sound of the cashier’s heartbeat.

He was about to take a second puff, but he stopped mid-motion. He opened his eyes and they switched to their black version in less than a heartbeat. The cigarette fell from the hold of his fingers. He crushed it with his boots and hastened to leave the place.  He had not taken five steps that he already knew he was being followed.

He jogged across the street, to reach the less lightened side-walk. Running would be the last thing to do. It would let the pursuer know Mitchell was aware of his presence. With long strides, he took the direction of his motel, refraining himself from peeking above his shoulder. Anyway, even without looking, he could tell that the other was still following him from a distance.

He was only two blocks away from his destination. He took the opportunity of having to cross at an intersection to give in to the temptation and throw a furtive glance behind. He could only catch, from the corner of his eyes, the sight of a silhouette that instantly receded in the shadows of a hedge.

Feigning to ignore it, Mitchell took the narrow alleyway that led to the parking of the Weston Travelodge.

He walked past the motel’s reception, then, past all of the room doors and instead of taking a halt in front of his, he turned the corner of the building and hid along the wall. It did not take long before he heard distinct footsteps coming in his direction. His pursuer was getting closer. He was nearly on him.

Mitchell pounced from his hiding spot, pushed the man to the wall and pinned him there with his forearm against his chest. “Hello, Anders.”

The surprise tore up a snarl from the throat of his captive.

Mitchell strengthened his grasp on the smaller man, to prevent him from escaping. A metallic object poked him in the ribs and he lowered his gaze to see that Anders was pressing a gun to his stomach.

“Alright,” Mitchell said in a low and contained tone. “My friends are gone, I have no home, no job, my venom-father is determined to make me suffer through hell and above all, my lover hates me. So if you really want to shoot me: by all means, go ahead. It’s not like I have much to live for.”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment: dark brown probing into slate blue. Anders lowered his gun. “How did you know it was me?”

Mitchell kept him against the wall for a few more seconds. “Are you kidding? I’m sorry to break that to you, sweet cheeks, but you can’t be sneaky around me: not when you’re going around smelling like sex on legs on 200 square meters. Whatever your disguise, to me you’re always naked.”

When Mitchell released him, Anders made a chin gesture toward room 13. “Are you going to invite me in or do I have to make you?”

The younger vampire dug in his pocket for the key and unlocked the door. “Please, come in,” he said, stepping out of the way to let the other vampire pass first.  

Once inside, Anders embraced the untidy room in one glance: the messy bed, the empty bottles and the full ashtrays, but he refrained himself from commenting on the state of the premise.

After he had closed the door, Mitchell poured two glasses of gin and handed one to his guest, but Anders wrinkled his nose.

Mitchell took a sip from his own glass and observed the other vampire. Anders had been better-fed than himself in the last few weeks, but he did not seem well: rather nervous, disorientated, and lost. What had Herrick done to his sassy, playful Anders? It made Mitchell want to take him in his arms and shelter him from the world. But if Anders was there, it was certainly not for his hugs. “Herrick sent you, didn’t he?”

If the question perturbed Anders, he did not let it show. He trailed his finger on top of the dusty cabinet and got rid of the dirt by rubbing his thumb and forefinger. “He says that he’s willing to forgive you, if you come back to the family.”

Mitchell put his glass down on the table with such strength the gin splashed out and soaked the tablecloth.  “You can tell your _master_ he can shove his invitation deep where the sun doesn’t shine.”

“He’s not my master,” Anders objected.

“If you don’t act under his command, why are you here, then?” Mitchell asked, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. He walked up to Anders until merely a dozen centimeters separated them.

“I don’t know,” Anders admitted, not trying to fight the invasion of his private space.

The grim tension between them started to ease and Anders saw Mitchell’s expression change. His demeanor had lost all aggressiveness. Gently, he placed a hand to the other vampire’s chest. “I think I do,” Mitchell said softly.  

“Yeah, I’m running back to you because I’m weak,” Anders said in a defeated sigh, looking down at the hand on his chest.  

Mitchell’s long fingers moved up to start undoing Anders’ black tie. “Well, in that case, we both have to confess our utter weakness.”  

The blond man caught his wrist to stop his action. “Mitchell, this is exactly what Herrick wants us to do,” he reminded him.  

“Yes, that’s true,” Mitchell conceded. “But I’m more interested in you, Anders.” He pulled the tie from the shirt’s collar with his free hand and let it fall to the floor like a forgotten ribbon. “What is it exactly that you want?”

The blue eyes were puzzled. Anders let go of his wrist. “I don’t understand. You are not doing it because of the power my blood gives you?”  

“No, I’m not. Never was.”

He had already assured Anders on his innocence in that matter, but now, the Kiwi seemed more disposed to believe him.  He reached for the buttons of Anders’ shirt and undid the first three of them, marvelling at the fact the smaller man let him undress him without putting up a fight.

“Then why?” Anders wondered.

“Because your lust is the only thing you are willing to give me, so I am going to take it all, to the very last bit. That’s why you are here, aren’t you? That’s why we are both here. We’ve both tried to escape it. I know you did, but you’ve got to admit that there is no way out of it. You were right. We fancy ourselves as monsters, but we are just slaves; slaves to our lust for each other even more than we are to Herrick’s plans.”  

“I don’t want to be a slave,” Anders protested.                                                            

Mitchell shushed him softly. “I know that, baby. But in the end, we all are: ghosts, werewolves and vampires, even humans:  all slaves to something or someone. And I prefer to be yours than anyone else’s.” He had reached the last button and Anders’ shirt hanged opened like the petals of a night flower: the natural perfume of his body making Mitchell’s head spin and his mouth water. Mitchell got rid of his gloves, pulling them off with his teeth, and he slipped one of his hands under the dressed shirt to touch the skin of his shoulder. With his other hand, he took the gun from Anders’ loose grip and slipped it into the back-pocket of his jeans.

Anders’ eyes were half-closed and his voice unsteady. “I’m still angry with you, you know.”

“Good,” Mitchell replied with a small smirk. He looked down at Anders’ pink, plump lips. “What about Dawn?” he asked.

“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my business assistant and my guardian ghost.”

“You couldn’t have told me sooner?”

“No. I enjoyed your jealousy too much.”  

This time, Mitchell quitted on trying to resist and he took his venom-brother’s mouth in a bruising kiss, full of tongue and teeth and despair. His nails dug into the soft skin of Anders’ waist. It was all possessiveness and a little revenge. Mitchell ravaged those lips, too smooth for their own sake. His rough stubble rubbing on Anders’ added to the crisp savageness of their embrace.  On the warpath, Mitchell took his ministration to his mate’s heaving chest.

He drew out his fangs to bite down Anders’ right pectoral and he lapped the blood that spilled out of the puncture wounds, teasing Anders’ hard nipple as he went. The blond man hissed and shivered between his hands, trying to find purchase on his shoulders.

A bit of blood had trickled down to Anders’ hip. Mitchell bent down and pressed his tongue where the drop of blood was clinging to the skin and he licked the red trail back up to the bite that he sealed with his saliva after having taken his time to toy with it a little more and taste the delicious liquor.

Anders was shaking all over and the dark ink that tinted his entire irises was beginning to spill to the white of his eyes. Mitchell still had a bit of blood smeared on his chin, but instead of cleaning it, he kissed Anders on the mouth and he let him suck some remaining drops from his bottom lip. “See how wonderful your taste is?” Mitchell murmured when they parted. “Do you remember mine? What is it like? Tell me.”

“Rich, bold, complex, woody,” Anders enumerated.  “Addictive,” he added, in a thin, quaky whisper.  

“You can have my blood again. All you have to do is take what’s yours,” Mitchell reminded him. He stepped back, to put a few meters between his mate and him. He unzipped his jacket and got rid of it by throwing the piece of clothing on the table carelessly, then, he reached for the collar of his t-shirt and hooked a forefinger into it.

“Don’t do that, Mitchell,” Anders warned him.                                                            

“Why?” Mitchell asked, not taking the warning into consideration and pulling his shirt over his head. It ended up on the table with his jacket.

Anders’ gaze instantly travelled down his bare chest. “Because I don’t think I’ll be able to keep myself from-” He swallowed hard, as if afraid that saying it out loud would annihilate the little that was left of his self-control.

Mitchell, however, was determined to destroy it bit by bit. “That’s exactly what I’m aiming for,” he explained, unbuckling his belt and pulling it out of the loops. “I want to feel that you can’t resist me; that I still have this hold on you. I’m not exactly leaving you a choice here.”

“This is a power game to you, isn’t it?” Anders glowered, but his stare did not miss any move as Mitchell was getting rid of his boots.

“Maybe, but you’re still the one who ends up fucking me.”

When Mitchell unzipped his pants, Anders started trembling again. He licked his lips, his mouth suddenly overflowed with venom when the taller man pushed his jeans and underwear past his narrow hips and revealed his lithe body in the faint, red glow coming through the curtains from an Indian restaurant sign across the street.

Without a word more, Mitchell walked to the bed and kneeled on the mattress with his back to Anders. He reached to the back of his neck to brush his curls out of the way. He tilted his head to the side to offer himself for a bite. Then, eyes closed, he waited for his mate to claim him.

Silent seconds passed and Mitchell could sense the battle going on in Anders’ mind, even if he could not see him. He was aware of every subtle movement of the air in the room, and it was vibrating from Anders’ inner struggle.  

 _“Please, Anders. I need it,”_ Mitchell begged in mind. He himself had his muscles tense with lust, anticipation, tension and a suave kind of fear. He kept the same posture, still dying to be bitten, but he parted his knees further, to make his other desires known in an even blunter manner.

A shudder of both relief and expectancy went down Mitchell’s back when he heard a low snarl and the rushed rustling of fabric. He wasn’t quite sure what kind of fury he had unleashed on himself.

He measured the force of it when Anders’ chest collided with his back and projected him onto his stomach. A clawing hand grasped a fistful of his curls and forced his head even further to the side. He cried out when long fangs pierced the skin at the junction between his neck and shoulder.

The weight of Anders' body pinned him down. With a hand pulling his hair and fangs in his flesh, he could not move at all. He was entirely at Anders’ mercy. He had wanted it so bad that now he felt close to passing out. Anders would not let him, however. One of his hands went down to Mitchell’s hip and took it in a firm grip while he kept on biting him, like an animal would do to prevent their mate from moving during coupling. Anders forced him to tilt his pelvis backward so he could penetrate him.

Mitchell moaned loudly when he felt Anders entering him. It should have hurt, and it did, but he was a vampire, and the venom rushing through him from the bite made his body welcoming for his male. The rough burning sensation didn’t last for more than a few seconds before a rush of endorphins and pure pleasure exploded in his stomach and spread to his fingertips.

Anders did not move at first, to let Mitchell feel breached and full from the thickness of his cock.

Mitchell whimpered from the loss when Anders retracted his fangs, but his apex hastened to comfort him by licking the blood and the sweat off his skin. He licked his way up to Mitchell’s ear. “That’s what you wanted, huh?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Ye-es.”

He heard Anders snigger, low and throaty. “You’re such a little slut.”

Mitchell shivered. “Yours,” he let out in a voice made thin and breathy from want.

“Yes, that’s right… my little slut,” Anders corrected himself.

Mitchell wanted Anders to fuck him already, hard enough to make him insane. He tried to roll his hips off the mattress, to take him in even deeper, but he knew that after he had dragged his mate into this folly, he deserved his punishment.

The grip eased on the dark mane, but Mitchell let out a hiss of protest and Anders’ fingers were back to pulling on his curls at once. Mitchell was yearning for that roughness, for his apex to forcibly remind him who he belonged to.

Anders’ hand moved to grab his wrist instead, to pull it over Mitchell’s head and trap it there on the bed sheets. There was no need for Anders to hold his hip anymore. The older vampire knew quite well that his brunet mate would accept his thrusts and keep on presenting himself by pushing his buttocks up against his stomach. Mitchell was too far gone anyway to oppose any kind of resistance.

Every push inside the pliant body tore such pretty sobs of pleasure out of Mitchell’s throat that Anders was not able to resist and he bit down the flesh surrounding the jutting shoulder blade offered to his fangs, just to hear the sobs amplify to groans and moans.

The sensation of being trapped and not really able to participate in the coupling made Mitchell frustrated as much as it contributed to the boiling tension that coiled in the vicinity of his pubis. He was being fucked by Anders, rough and steady, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was not able to touch himself and still, he was going at a mad speed directly to a powerful orgasm. He was choking on his own moans and had no way to warn Anders; to tell him how close he was. He had no voice, no brain, no will and no control over anything. But he didn’t have to speak. Anders knew. He was being an attentive apex, his instincts focused to his mate’s signs and signals. He tasted Mitchell’s impending orgasm in his blood that suddenly acquired a sweeter and thicker quality. Anders was sadly also a wicked vampire and his thrust slowed as he retracted his fangs.

“I know just how close you are, my beautiful little whore,” Anders simpered into his ear. “You’ve been a good boy so far, but I’m still pondering if I’m going to let you touch yourself and come,” he added, taking hold of both of Mitchell’s wrists. He rolled his hips painfully slow and nuzzled the side of his mate’s neck as he listened to the long, desperate whimpers it dragged from Mitchell’s parted lips. “I could keep you on the edge forever, or, at least, for a very, very long time.”

The sudden drop in intensity had involuntary tears running down Mitchell’s face. “Please…. Please, baby…” he begged, finding his voice again to urge Anders to put him out of his blissful misery.

Anders had a sigh of mocked resignation. “Alright, I’m going to show you clemency,” he said, freeing Mitchell’s right hand. “You’re so tight, it’s illegal, and I’m dying for a good release myself,” he groaned, picking up speed again and unleashing his passion on Mitchell.

Mitchell was pretty sure he was about to implode when he closed his fingers around his own turgid cock. Orgasm hit him too fast to have seen it coming and so violently his vision blurred as he cried out. He vaguely heard Anders roar his name and felt him spill his seed hotly and without restraint into his quivering body.

It took the brunet several long minutes to blink the black away from his eyes and retract his fangs. The weight of his partner’s body eased off him after a while. He wished he could roll onto his back and close his arms around Anders, but he was too boneless to move and had not quite succeeded to gather his wits yet. Nobody in this sorry world could make him feel the way Anders did. Every one of Mitchell’s cells was pulsating like an independent heart, as if, albeit dead, they got a life of themselves. He felt his mate touching the back of his shoulder: light touches that made his over-sensitive skin covered in goosebumps.

The intercourse had been so straining, though profoundly satisfying, that Mitchell closed his eyes and took his time to relax and recover. His breath was still ragged and uneven. His mind slowly caught up on what they had just done; what he had made Anders do. He did not regret it per say, but now they were pumped up with each other’s venom and blood again, with all that implied. He would not let Herrick get his hands on his blood or Anders’s, no matter what their venom-father intended to do with it.  Now that he had gotten his male back, it seemed to Mitchell that anything was possible. If Anders had managed to stay out of Herrick’s reach for several years, back in the 1910s, they could achieve the same feat, together.

But when Mitchell finally mustered the courage to sit in the bed, he realized he was alone. Anders was gone, so were his clothes. He had dressed up and left while Mitchell was too zoned out to notice.

The situation had an awful taste of _déjà vu._

At the same time, everything that happened between them was so fucked up Mitchell could not blame Anders for his Cinderella syndrome. Mitchell would have loved to have a real conversation with his mate, once their primal instincts sated. It would have to wait, apparently.

With a heavy rock at the bottom of his stomach, Mitchell left the bed and headed for the bathroom. He definitely needed a shower.

His reflection greeted him in the mirror. It did not startle him as much as that vision did the first time. It was still odd to be staring at himself. It was the image of a young-looking man, in his mid-twenties. The lack of sleep and the alcohol abuse of the last week did not show on his face. His coupling with Anders had had rejuvenating effects.

Mitchell inspected the fresh bite on his neck. It started to cicatrize already. He contorted himself to see the one on his back and that’s when he noticed the letters, painted with his own blood on the pale canvas of his shoulder. Anders had left him a message: two words in Gaelic.

It said “ _sábhail mé_ ” (save me).


	14. Pomegranate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, my gratitude goes to the ever loyal Katyushha for her help.

The water fell on Mitchell’s shoulders, hot and wet like human hemoglobin. To his eyes and confused senses, it had also taken a red color. He saw blood dripping down the beige shower walls. He was bathing in it; soaked with it. The blood flowing from the shower head ran down his skin to his feet and disappeared through the drain hole. He did not find the vision horrible, or disgusting. It made his stomach growl.

He could still taste Anders as if he had taste buds in his veins that relayed the flavor of his blood to his hypothalamus. That part of his brain had lost any notion of satiety. The hunger was compulsive. He had never experienced such a strong craving; so strong in fact that he couldn’t even think of trying to suppress it. This was an appetite that nothing could appease but the hunt and the kill.

It was clear now that the more he would mate with Anders, the more dangerous he’d become. His will to be human was reduced to a distant and fragile glow, like a lighthouse in the tempest. The elements were stronger than his conscience now. The monster had won. The thought should horrify him. In truth, he did not care anymore. His desire for Anders had shut down any other voice in his head, including the ones that should keep him on the right path.

_Save me_

Anders wasn’t the only one who needed to be saved.

The Irishman stepped out of the shower and dried himself quickly. He would dress, and then, go in search of his elusive mate.

Mitchell’s clothes still remained where he had left them after stripping down for Anders. He grabbed his pair of jeans on the carpet and put them on. Anders had left with his gun, but at its place, in the back pocket, Mitchell found a pile of hundred pounds bills along with his own phone. He frowned, but decided to pocket the money back nonetheless. The explanation for the presence of the cash in his jeans came when he turned his phone on and a new text message from an unknown number flashed on his screen:  

_“Get yourself a better hotel. This is a shithole.”_

Mitchell chuckled. This could only come from one person. He changed the unknown number to a new contact named “Anders”. 

He was reaching for his shirt when he heard a knock on the door. The unexpected sound made him jump. It could be Anders coming back, but he doubted it. He scanned the room, looking for a weapon and remembered the injector pen and the stakes.

Mitchell fumbled through his backpack until his hand closed around a slim plastic cylinder. The knocks on the door resumed. He tucked the injector pen under his belt, behind his back and, running his fingers through his damp hair to tame it, he headed for the door.

On the doorstep, stood a tall woman with steel gray eyes. Her dark hair were wind-swept and he suspected that her fangs were as sharp as her smile.  

“Who are you?” He had never seen this female vampire before. He refrained from reaching for the killing pen just yet. Nothing indicated she had bad intentions, but he doubted that her presence there, just after Anders was gone, was a coincidence.

“I’m Michele Brock,” she introduced herself, reaching for a handshake.

He looked down at her hand, but did not return the civility. “What do you want?”

“I was looking for Andrew Johnson,” she admitted, but then her gaze wandered away from Mitchell’s face, down on his well-cut silhouette. “Now I think I might just change my mind.”

Mitchell was hermetically closed to her attempt at flirting. She had mentioned his mate’s name, and that was enough to put him in a protective mode. Her Kiwi accent had caught his attention and awakened his suspicion as well. Was it from her that Anders wanted to be saved? Surely, Anders had made at least a few enemies among the Illyrians while living in Auckland. “I’ve no idea who you’re speaking about.”

“No? That’s strange,” she commented, “because there’s still Andy’s smell all over you.”

This time, Mitchell’s pupils dilated like the ones of a feline ready to pounce. “I have nothing to tell you!” he barked, slamming the door shut and putting the chain.  

“Gosh! You Snows are so rude!” she pestered him through the door. He heard the sound of her high heels on the concrete as she walked away. He waited, his ear to the door, but the prolonged silence led him to believe that she was gone for good.

He rested his shoulders and head back against the door and heaved a sigh. If she knew Anders’ scent, it meant that they had coupled in the past. Again, there was this insane jealousy putting his guts in the wringer.  

As he finished getting dressed, he texted Anders a quick message : _“Call me asap.”_

He hastened to throw his scarce belongings into his backpack and less than ten minutes later, he was already leaving his room.

The dawning light started to grow between heavy clouds that raced from the city to the countryside. A sheet of newspaper carried by the gust stuck to his leg. He shook it off with a curse. The high wind made tracking Anders’ scent difficult, if not impossible.

If Mitchell was visible in a mirror again, he had to be careful of his presence being recorded on tape. Cautiously avoiding the angle of the Travelodge’s security cameras, he walked around the building and took the passageway between the motel and a high wooden fence.

That woman, Michele; he battled with himself not to imagine her with Anders – the two of them hunting and playing together in the warm New-Zealand nights. With a sharp pang of envy and resentment, he imagined her hands on his shoulders, her lips on his neck. She was not going to get him back. She was not going to have him again, touch him, or hurt him.

Sandy jumped with a frightened yelp. She was busy putting the trash out when he had appeared from around the corner. The thick layer of makeup she usually sported was gone and she still had curlers in her hair. Obviously, she had not planned on seeing anybody outside at this hour. “Oh God! It’s you. You scared me for a second,” she giggled when she recognized him.

Her relief was short-living because the handsome young man to whom she had rented her room number 13 had eyes black like the gates of hell.

Mitchell dropped his bag at his feet.

Her scream of terror did not get past her lips. The cruel grip crushing her windpipe kept the sound buried down her throat. Struggling was useless against a demon like Mitchell. He had a century of experience in the art of killing and he had been made even stronger and deadlier from coupling.

The panicked thumping of the prey’s heart drove the blood out of the sliced arteria directly into the predator’s mouth in delectable spurts.

Once sated, Mitchell got back on his feet and watched the prey lose its remaining blood on the cold ground. What a waste! Most of the time, there was too much blood in a human for a single vampire. He wished he could have shared with his mate.

There was a gaping void inside Mitchell, where he should have felt pleasure or remorse: satisfaction or guilt. His views were more practical nowadays. Blood lust was distracting: he had done what he had to do to take that distraction out of the way. His victim was just a negligible casualty in the greater scheme of his quest to get his apex back.

His instincts prompted him to feed her in return for her sacrifice, recruit her as a new vampire and send her to Herrick, but the wailing of police sirens in the distance deterred him. He looked down at his clothes and was relieved to see he had done a clean job and avoided blood stains. He slung his backpack across his shoulder and wiped his mouth with the back of his glove. He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and walked away from the crime scene.

On his way to the bus station, he checked his phone, only to see that his text message to Anders had stayed unanswered. He pressed the digits, deciding to call his lover directly. After four ringtones, he ended up on the voicemail: “ _You’ve reached Andrew Johnson, head of Johnson PR. I’m busy at the moment. Leave me a message and I’ll contact you as soon as possible_.”

The message he left after the tone was laconic. “Anders. It’s Mitchell. Call me back.”

At the station, Mitchell consulted the bus schedule. The first bus of the day was not going to show up before fifteen minutes. He considered calling a taxi and decided that public transportation was more anonymous. He rolled a cigarette and smoked it as he waited.

The sun appeared finally: crimson like a ripe fruit. Mitchell thought of the pomegranate in the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades. Hades, the king of the dead, struck by the beauty of the young goddess, abducted her and brought her back to his underground kingdom. Persephone’s mother pleaded Zeus to intervene and free Persephone. Zeus sent Hermes, the messenger, who told Persephone that she could go back to her mother if she had not touched any food in the underworld. But then, Hermes noticed red stains on the goddess’ white gown. She was forced to admit having succumbed to the temptation of eating six seeds of pomegranate. It was too late. It bound her to the underworld and to her husband. Mitchell suspected that, in fact, Persephone had never had any intention of leaving the kingdom of the dead. She had eaten the pomegranate knowing the consequences. In fact, he could relate to her on a deep level. He had tasted blood; human blood, but also Anders’. He was in hell, where he wanted to be. It was there that he belonged.

The bus driver’s eyebrows went up when Mitchell paid his fare with a 100 pounds bill, but he accepted the payment without a comment.

Mitchell sat on one of the benches at the back. His phone had remained awfully silent. No news from Anders yet.

Just after they got past Tickenham, Mitchell called the blond vampire. He ended up on the voicemail again and left a second message: “Anders, answer your phone,” he demanded, quiet enough the driver and the other passengers did not hear him. “There is a woman named ‘Michele Brock’ who came to my room. She’s looking for you. I have a bad feeling about this.”

He spent the rest of the trip looking at his phone, with his leg bouncing.

He stepped off the bus at St-James Park. The city was waking up. Mitchell walked up Lower Maudlin Street, in order to get away from the shopping and business area. On the sidewalk, a homeless man rattled change at the bottom of a paper cup when the vampire passed by. Mitchell threw him a hundred pounds without a look back as he pressed his cellphone to his ear.  The personal tone of his third voice message betrayed his growing worry: “Anders. Where are you? You wrote that you want me to save you: what does that mean? Save you from what; from whom? Listen, I get why you’re afraid of me… of us….Trust me, I get it. And I don’t know what to make of everything that’s been happening since we’ve met either. But at the same time, I think it doesn’t matter, because we can’t go back in time. You’re my mate now. I want to take care of you, baby, but you’ve got to let me. Just tell me where you are and I’ll be right there. Call me back, please.”

He hit the button to end the call with a snort of frustration. There could only be two reasons why Anders was not picking up. First possibility: he knew Mitchell was calling but he did not want to answer. Second possibility: he could not physically reach his phone. Third option: he had thrown the phone in the harbour so Mitchell would not be able to join him ever again. The third scenario was unlikely. The first two possibilities filled him with the same amount of concern.

Mitchell knew where he had the best chances to find Anders: but that was also a place he wished to avoid at all cost. This is where his feet brought him nonetheless. It seemed like no matter how hard or how far he tried to escape, he would always come back here.

No car was parked in front of the funeral parlor and his eyes did not catch any movement through the windows, but he knew that under the surface of a glassy sea, the sharks could still swim.

“Come on, Anders! Answer me, for Christ's sake,” Mitchell hissed between his teeth as he tried an ultimate call.

“ _You’ve reached Andrew Johnson…”_

Mitchell left a last message. “I’m in front of B. Edwards. Are you there? Why aren’t you answering your phone? I’m worried about you. If you pick up, I swear I won’t ask for explanations or justifications. I just want to know that you’re alright.” Then Mitchell waited, just in case. He stayed on the line until a long beeping sound announced that he had run out of time.  

“Shit,” he cussed and he hung up.

He had no choice now but to thread on enemy territory.

***

Only one vampire was there to welcome him at the reception of B. Edwards Funeral Directors, like the Sphinx of Thebes, part-female-part monster. The vampire was an old lady everybody knew under the nickname of “Nana”. The old woman gave Mitchell a small smile when he walked in. She looked harmless, but she was everything but a soft-hearted grandma. She used to say she had been Hitler’s mistress, back in her human days.

Mitchell always doubted the veracity of that story. Vampires liked to brag: about the great and terrible things they had done. They strived to appear less mundane they really were. Mitchell rarely spoke about his own past. Maybe the involuntary aura of mystery he kept around himself was the reason why most of his congeners feared him.

He crossed the room without giving her a single glance. As he stepped in the next room, he heard her speaking to someone over the phone: “Mitchell just walked in.”

He did not give a shit if Herrick knew he was there. He headed downstairs without hesitation. His mind was focused on a single task: following a familiar smell that led him to the basement of the funeral parlor, down a long corridor and to a metallic door. The other side of that door was a makeshift bedroom with an army camp bed, a small cabinet and a chair. Anders’ scent was the strongest there. But as soon as he entered the bedroom, he was attacked by a furious ghost, trying to punch him and pull his hair. Fortunately for Mitchell, the ghosts’ hands passed through his head and arms without doing any damage. Out of reflex, he still braced himself.

“What did you do to him?! What did you do!? Tell me!!” Dawn screamed, not discouraged in the slightest by the ineffectiveness of her attacks.

The force of her wrath had him retreat to the corner of the room. “Dawn! Stop!” he implored her. “Jeezus! I’m not the enemy here!”

‘How am I supposed to know, huh!?” she yelled. “How!?”

She finally stepped back, hands balled into fists.  

“Listen, I’m here to help. Where is Anders?” Mitchell asked her, keeping a safe distance and holding out a pacifying hand, in case she lashed out again. But that did not seem to be her intention.

Instead, she gave him a look of contempt. “I don’t know where he is! Do you think I’d be in that state if I knew?!” she pointed out, irritation making her voice piercing.  

“I… I saw him last night,” Mitchell stuttered, as if confessing a sin. “Well, early this morning, in fact. But then he left without warning and I’m looking for him.”

Dawn started pacing in the room, shaken, agitated, upset, and Mitchell could see that she was bravely fighting tears. “He told me to stay here; not to go with him. I know something is wrong. I know he’s in danger, but I can’t reach him-”

“Unless he ‘calls out’ for you.” Mitchell supplied. He knew how the bond between a guardian ghost and their protégé worked. If Anders didn’t want her to find him, she would not be able to locate him.

“Look!” she despaired, gesturing to show the lower part of her body. It was beginning to fade. Her feet and legs were invisible now, as if she was amputated and levitating half a meter off the ground. “Something is wrong with Anders! I have to find him! I have to-”

“Calm down, please, calm down,” Mitchell begged her. The unsettling vision gave an additional kick to his own worry. “I’m going to help you find him, okay? We’re going to find him together.”

“Why should I trust you?” she asked him, wary.

“Because I think Anders would want you to,” Mitchell stated, hoping it would convince her.  

She wobbled on her fading legs. “I don’t know where to look. I don’t know where to start,” she admitted, helpless.

Mitchell took it as a clue that she was ready to team up with him for Anders’ good. “I’m pretty sure Herrick has an idea on what is going on,” he said. He dropped his backpack on the bed, pulled the wooden stakes out of it and tucked them in his belt, under his jacket, along with the pen injector. “Let’s ask him.”  

On their way to Herrick’s office, Dawn briefed him on the deal Anders had struck with the king of Bristol: how he had promised his collaboration to Herrick’s revolution against a protection from Gundersen who wanted him dead. She also told him about the “mission” Anders was sent to accomplish: to deliver Mitchell a message. A mission from which Anders had yet to come back.

Mitchell peeked into the corridor that led to his venom-father’s office. Only Seth stood guard in front of the door. “You know the garage where they park the hearses? Wait for me there,” he told Dawn.

She scowled. “I’m tired of being told what to do and being left behind.”

“I understand. I’m sorry,” he apologized, “but Herrick is more likely to spill the beans if you are not there.”

The ghost scoffed, but she was forced to admit that the Irishman was right. She turned around without a word more and vanished through the wall.

Mitchell was already heading to Herrick’s office like a tank crossing a battlefield. Seth tried to interpose himself.

“I want to see Herrick,” Mitchell growled.   

“The boss is busy.”   

“I don’t give a shit. Get the fuck out of my way.”

Mitchell grabbed Seth by the shirt and yanked him away without breaking a sweat.

Herrick was on the phone when Mitchell barged into his office. “John! What a nice surprise!” he said, putting his phone down.

The casual tone just fueled Mitchell’s rage. “Are you fucking crazy?!” he roared, slamming both hands on Herrick’s desk, skipping small talk altogether. “You were supposed to protect him! You told Anders you were going to assign your best man to his protection, and you send him on a mission with Seth?!”  

“You must know that I’m currently doing all I can to find Anders,” Herrick told his venom-son. “And for your information, I was not expecting Seth to protect him, but I did put my best man on the task.”

“Who?”

“You, of course,” Herrick replied. “When he paid a visit to you last night, you did mate with him, did you?”

“That’s none of your business.”  Again, Mitchell felt like he was the one being at fault.

“There is no need to deny it. It’s a good thing that you did, because it’s not like Anders can be killed now. Your blood and venom protect him,” Herrick pointed out.  

So this had been Herrick’s plan all along. Mitchell should have seen it coming. By pushing Anders into his arms, Herrick knew he was winning on every front. On one side, he was fulfilling his part of the agreement by making sure Anders would become invulnerable, and hence, protected from the vengeful king of Auckland. At the same time, it allowed his experimentation on his twin sons to continue.

Despite knowing that Anders would survive even if staked or shot with werewolf blood, Mitchell’s fear for his lover was still very much alive. “Even if he can’t be killed, he still risks to be injured or tortured!” he thundered.

“I love Anders like a son, but I’m afraid he brought that upon himself,” the older vampire observed. “He should have stayed with you.”

Mitchell could not disagree – everything would have been simpler if Anders had not left the Motel after their intercourse. However, he was not ready to let Herrick blame Anders entirely.  “That man, Gundersen, Dawn said you knew he was in Bristol for days now. Why didn’t you do something about it?” he accused Herrick.

Herrick checked his phone before he replied. “As far as I know, Gundersen did not hunt on our territory yet. He had not broken any law. That’s not good for my public image: me killing an Illyrian king without a direct provocation. We are going to have to work on a reconciliation if we want to make a real revolution. We will need the Illyrians in the near future.”

Mitchell leaned over the desk and glared at the older vampire intently. “What if it’s _me_ who kills Gundersen.”  Mitchell did not leave his interlocutor any doubt on his intentions.

“Oh, well, it’s different. They’ll expect that from someone like you. You already have quite the reputation as a regicide. Besides-” Herrick was interrupted by the ringing of his phone.  He took the call right away, and after a few abrupt yeses, he hung up. “One of my contacts saw Gundersen’s female outside the Bristol North Baths just about fifteen minutes ago,” he informed Mitchell. “It’s a derelict Victorian era building on Gloucester road.”

“I know where it is.”

Herrick walked around his desk in order to get to the door, but the Irishman blocked the way.   “No. You’re not coming. You’ve done enough already,” Mitchell growled. “I want the keys to one of the hearses,” he demanded, holding out an opened hand.  

One of his trademark serpent smiles stretched Herrick’s lips. “That’s my boy,” he encouraged Mitchell, dropping the keys into his hand. “Go be your twin brother’s hero.”

***

Anders’ head throbbed as if his skull housed a crazy woodpecker. He remembered the burn of the Taser gun to the back of his neck, but what happened after that was a blur. The muscles of his arms still resented the torture of the electric shocks and twitched painfully. The Taser had surely been settled to a mode powerful enough to take down a rhino.

Anders was on his knees: his head trapped under some kind of hood that prevented him from seeing anything. He tried to reach for his face and get rid of it, but his hands were tied behind his back with handcuffs. The metal dug into the skin of his wrists. With normal police gear, Anders would have been able to break the chain easily, even more so now that he had Mitchell’s blood and venom running through his veins, but these handcuffs had been reinforced. Whoever caught him had gone out prepared for a true vampire hunt. Anders didn’t have to be psychic to know who that was. He should have been more prudent, knowing he was a wanted man, but it was the effect mating with Mitchell had on him: it made him careless and hungry. It was not the first time he got in trouble because of it. He could have blamed Mitchell, but what was the point? They both obeyed their instincts. Anders had no doubt he was the most inconsequential of the two. He had run away from his mate without saying goodbye again. This time, he left behind a cry for help and his phone number. He had reached new summits in the art of mixed messages.

Speaking about his phone, he could feel the weight of it in his jacket’s pocket, but the device was turned off and he had no way to reach it with his hands in handcuffs. He also noticed that he could not feel his holster strapped around him anymore. Of course, his abductor had taken care of disarming him. He was defenseless.

He heard footsteps coming his way and the dark fabric was removed from in front of his eyes.

Colin Gundersen stood before him. No surprise there.

Anders blinked and took in his surroundings. He was chained to the top railing of a double stairwell. The floor was of a white, posh, faux-marble and the walls adorned with imitations of roman columns. A faint odor of chlorine floated in the air. Anders deduced that he was in the second floor foyer of an abandoned bathhouse. “Knocking someone out and abduct him while he’s feeding: that’s low, even for you,” he grunted.  

“You can say whatever you want, Johnson,” Colin replied, throwing the black hood next to a plastic bag that lay nearby on the floor. “I know you are shitting in your pants right now. For a vampire, you’ve always been kind of a Gaylord.”

“So you found me, congratulations,” Anders mocked him. “What’s this whole show for, exactly? Remind me who the boss is?”

“Yes,” Colin confirmed. “You tend to forget about it often, it seems. I know you’ve been screwing Michele, but even on that, I could have wiped the slate clean. Between you and me, she is a bit of a slut anyway, and there are plenty other fish in the sea. But what you did, when you killed Helen, this is not something I can forgive.”

“You could have staked me right away when you caught me feeding on the cashier behind the convenient store. But you didn’t. Did you bring me here only to give me the big speech of the evil mastermind? Please, don’t let me interrupt you,” Anders sniggered.  

Nostrils flaring, Colin put his feet to the middle of Anders’ chest and pushed him back against the metal railing. “I didn’t rule out the possibility of ending your life, but now I have other priorities. Herrick was dead, and now he’s not. I want to know how he did it.”

Anders spat on the shining leather shoe. “I don’t know anything,” he argued. It came as an evidence that, as the rumor mill would run in the vampire community, its most psychotic elements would be ready to go length to learn how Herrick had performed his miracle. But Anders would not speak. He better not to: for his own sake and the one of his mate.

Ignoring the spot of saliva on top his shoe, Colin stepped back.  “Sure, you don’t know anything… just like you don’t need your fangs.” From the plastic bag on the floor, he drew a hammer and a brick. “They’re such an overrated asset for a vampire.”

Anders, who had managed to stay pretty laid-back about the whole situation so far, felt panic creeping up his chest. Losing fangs was about the worst thing that could happen to him. “I told you: I don’t know anything!” he choked, struggling to free himself from the handcuffs.

“Helen knew things about you and William Herrick. She was ready to blackmail you. I know this is why you killed her. So, I don’t believe you when you feign ignorance,” Colin affirmed. The hammer in one hand and the brick in the other, he approached his prisoner. “Isn’t that great? I get to hurt you, and I get to know how to survive a werewolf attack. It’s like killing two birds with one stone: one brick in that case. And if the little bird doesn’t want to tweet, I’m going to make him.”

Out of a defensive reflex, Anders vamped out and snarled at his enemy, which was the last thing to do in the circumstances.

Colin slammed him across the face with the brick, not hard enough to break his teeth, but enough to hurt his jaw and split his lower lip open.

“I’m leaving you a last opportunity to speak before I put this into your mouth,” Colin bellowed, waving the brick in front of Anders’ eyes.  To his utter displeasure, the blond vampire remained as silent as a grave.

“Open your mouth,” Colin ordered, running out of patience.  

“No.”

“Tell me how Herrick did it, then. That’s the only two choices you have.”

Anders narrowed black eyes. “Go to hell.”

Gundersen put the hammer down and grabbed his face, trying to force his jaw to give way. Anders wanted to cry out for help, but that would mean opening his mouth.

A second later, Colin let go of him, stood and stepped back. Relieved, Anders wondered what was going on, until he heard the noises coming from down the stairs. There was a vicious fight going on: between two vampires, judging by the snarls and hisses. Suddenly, a voice echoed in the building. It was Mitchell’s voice, calling his name. “Andrew!”

“Who’s that?” Colin asked his prisoner, pulling Anders’ gun from inside his coat.

Anders licked blood from the corner of his lips. “My mate.”

“Oh. And I guess he’s very protective of you.”

“You’ve no idea.”

“It’s a shame he’s going to get here too late,” Colin stated. Without a warning, he aimed at his prisoner’s heart and pulled the trigger.  

Anders’ eyes went wide and he cried out when the hollow-point bullet pierced the flesh a few centimeters at the left of his sternum. The impact of the bullet hurt, incredibly, but even worse was the sensation of the werewolf blood spreading like burning acid in his organism. If he had been a normal vampire, the pain would not have last very long. He would already be turned into ashes. But no. He was not an average monster anymore, and he was going to feel every second of it. He vaguely heard Mitchell shouting his name again. He could not respond. All his senses were monopolized by pain.  

By now, Colin had understood that something was wrong. Just to be sure, he shot two more bullets into Anders’ chest.

Anders moaned, too weak to scream.

Colin looked at the gun in his hand, astonished. “What the fuck?”  

Mitchell had reached the top of the stairs. He was keeping Michele hostage, with the injector pen pressed to the side of her neck. “Let him go, Gundersen, or I kill her.”

“Don’t trouble yourself” Colin replied. He lifted the gun again and fired at Michele. She did not utter a sound. Her shocked expression dissolved into ashes within seconds.

“Let my apex go!” Mitchell repeated, even if he had lost his leverage to convince Colin to cooperate.

Anders was on the fringe of unconsciousness, his head lulling back against the railing. His lips were parted in a mute plea for the pain to stop and blood dripped from his mouth.  Colin put the end of the barrel of the silenced gun between Anders’ eyes.  “I have two bullets left. I’m wondering if it can still make some good brain damage. Want to take a chance? Want to bet he won’t be a vegetable forever?”

“Don’t do that,” Mitchell begged.

“Maybe I won’t, if you can enlighten me. How come he’s not a pile of dust? How did Herrick come back?”

“Okay,” Mitchell said in a pacifying tone. He showed the palm of his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m going to tell you everything, if you step away from him.”

Colin laughed. “You think I’m an idiot? You think I’m going to-“

He could not finish his sentence. From inside the nearest wall, a rampageous ghost dashed for him. The look of surprise on Gundersen’s face was nearly comical, as he looked down the tip of the wooden stake sticking out of his ribcage. His eyes turned black and the gun fell from his hand.

“Wanker,” Dawn growled as she watched him crumble down at her feet.

Mitchell rushed to Anders side and kneeled down before him. He touched his pale, sweaty and feverish face. “Shit, shit, shit! Anders, Anders!”

Dawn had retrieved the keys from the pile of Colin’s remains and she freed Anders from the handcuffs. Mitchell gathered the unconscious vampire into his arms and pulled him onto his lap. “Anders!” he kept calling, his voice strangled by fear, shaking his mate in hope he would wake.

Dawn seemed strangely calm. “Let me,” she said softly. The ghost unbuttoned her protégé’s jacket and put her hands over his wounds. Her hands started glowing of the same silver light that Mitchell had seen illuminating the doorframe of the pink house, when Annie had decided she would not be a haunter anymore. Anders coughed and writhed in Mitchell’s arms.

At the end of the process, Dawn showed the stupefied Irishman the three bloodied bullets she held in her hands.

“Fuck… that hurt,” Anders said, his voice a thin, suffering rasp.

Mitchell felt a wave of relief wash over him. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s alright. We got you,” he soothed his mate, running his thumb over his brow. Anders looked like a fallen angel in his arms: the blood spots on his white shirt like blooming roses… or crushed pomegranate seeds. He picked his lover up into his arms and carried him down the stairs as Dawn led the way.

“You had me worried, you know,” Mitchell confided to the blond vampire, as he settled him carefully into the booth of the hearse.

“Yeah? How much?” Anders asked with a faint smirk.

“I think what you meant to say is ‘I’m sorry, Mitchell.’ “

“I’m sorry, Mitchell.”  

***

Anders healed fast; even faster after Mitchell had him bite his forearm and that he had made him drink a bit of the human blood Herrick provided. But despite his formidable recovery, it still took him a great amount of forces to go through such an accelerated healing process.

He was sound asleep now, in the bedroom of the funeral parlor’s basement. Neither Dawn nor Mitchell wanted to leave him. They were seated at their respective sides of the bed, surrounding the resting vampire. Mitchell was at Anders’ right, holding his hand, and Dawn was at his left, running her fingers through his hair as if he was a sick child.

“Anders said you were his business assistant,” Mitchell told the ghost. They didn't have much time to speak when they were on their rescue mission to Bristol North Baths.  

“Yes. We ran a successful PR company in Auckland together.” She paused for a moment, staring pensively at Anders’ peaceful face. “It was a kind of safe haven for us both.”

“It no longer is?”

“Anders had to leave and shut down our business when Gundersen started threatening him,” she explained. “He was planning to open a new PR boutique in London. Giving the recent events, I’m not sure it’s still in the cards…”

Mitchell nodded and lost himself in contemplation as well.

Dawn rearranged the pillow under Anders’ head for the fifth time. “I do sometimes wonder why destiny…. Fate…God, or whatever you want to call it, chose him to be the one I would guard. Why him: of all people?” she mused out loud. “But at the same time, it’s the only thing that ever made sense to me. I’m not naïve or anything. I know Anders is far from perfect. He can be egoistic, rude, devious… and let’s not forget that he’s also a murderer. But truth is: I didn’t know what happiness felt like before I began working with him. He always respected my intelligence and valued my integrity. That’s more than any member of my family ever did for me when I was alive. He trusted me like he trusted no one else. He rarely took a decision without asking for my opinion. I know he was proud of me. I know he was proud of what we accomplished together.  I only learned recently that I was his guardian ghost. I think he knew it for a long time now, but he never told me.”

“Why?”

“I suspect it’s because he didn’t want me to feel I had to protect him –that I was responsible for him or his mistakes.”

“But you still feel like you have to protect him,” Mitchell pointed out.

“Yes, I do. That’s my job; my unfinished business and … he’s everything to me.”  

“That makes the two of us,” the Irishman concluded. He brought Anders’ hand to his lips, kissed it and placed it back on the mattress. “I had a ghost friend as well, you know. She was not my guardian, but she still was one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I think you two would have gotten along,” he told Dawn with a smile.  

“Where is she now?”

“Somewhere safe, surrounded by mugs of tea and coffee. At least, that’s what I hope,” Mitchell said. With a gentle pat to Dawn’s shoulder, he stood from the bed. “Watch over him. I’ll be back soon,” he told her.  

“Where are you going?” Dawn inquired.

“There is… something I must do.”  

“Mitchell?” Dawn called him just as he opened the door.  

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

***

 

Mitchell’s hands were trembling. He soon got them under control. He had made the toughest and most important decision of his 118 years of life and he had no choice but to impersonate the embodiment of determination and resolve.

“How’s your brother?” was the sentence Herrick chose to greet him when Mitchell walked up between the parked hearses to join the far side of the garage where his venom father stood behind a large table.

“Recovering,” Mitchell provided flatly.  

“Resisting something as deadly as werewolf blood poisoning; it’s fascinating. I never thought, even in my craziest dreams, that you’d be so powerful once reunited. Well, I hoped you’d be, but then again, I could have been wrong.” Several maps of the city were scattered on the table. Herrick took one of them and folded it. He looked like an army general planning an invasion.  “What can I do for you, son?”

“I’m in,” Mitchell declared.  

Herrick welcomed it with an insolent sneer “What are you in exactly? The Disney club of human lovers and tree huggers? “

Mitchell gritted his teeth. Of course, Herrick was going to make him pay for having left in the first place. “I could ask you not to be a gobshite about it, but that would be like asking a snail to fly.”

“I gather that you’re here to insult me in your fine Irish brogue. If you don’t mind, I think we should do this at another moment. I’m busy right now,” Herrick observed, his fingers drumming on the table.  

“I’m here to make a deal with you.”

“A deal?”

“I’m ready to come back to the family, but I want you to free Anders,” Mitchell demanded.

“He’s already a free man. He’s here on his own accord.”

“We both know it’s not true. Venom-parents have this insidious control over their offspring. How to explain otherwise that I’ve spent so many decades scotched to your boots?”

Herrick rubbed his chin as he thought. “That forest in France, when we met. Do you remember? What was our deal?”  

The change of subject made Mitchell’s eyes narrow. “You said that if I let you take me, you’d save my men.”

“Why did I do that? Have you ever wondered?”

“No, I haven’t”

“Because I could see in you a great man, a terrible man, an orphan maker, a breaker of hearts,” Herrick explained with passion. “And I saw the exact same thing in Anders. I knew, before you did, that you were made for each other.” The older vampire bore his cold, blue gaze into Mitchell’s. “That little scratch of conscience that you have in you, that’s a lie, that’s not who you are. And I can see that you’re beginning to understand it.”

In a sudden and violent impulse, Mitchell sent the city maps flying off the table. He had no time for mind games. He had let Herrick speak too much already. He had let himself be dragged away from the real reason why he was there: his true purpose. “Let’s be clear,” he thundered, pointing a finger at his venom-father. “I don’t believe in your cause. The worldwide dominance of vampires, that’s bullshit. I don’t believe in any of this. The only reason why I’m ready to help you and throw the little humanity I still have in me to the gutter; the only reason why I’m ready to stomp on my conscience is for Anders. If you tell me to jump, I’ll ask how high, as long as you fulfill my conditions: you let Anders leave for London and build back his PR business there, and of course, you’d leave him alone, and that means not asking him to do your dirty jobs. I would be your invincible heir, with everything that comes with it, but not Anders. He’d be left out of it.”  

Keeping his composure, Herrick approached his son and sat at the edge of the table. “What tells me you won’t take the first opportunity to stake me in the back?”

“I’m not an idiot. I’ve learnt my lesson. I won’t try to kill you again. You are like a hydra anyway: you cut one head, seven sprung in its place,” Mitchell sighed, his eyebrows still tightly knitted.  “Listen, I’ll be your attack dog, your executioner, your blood bank and miracle maker, I don’t care: I’ll be whatever you want me to be, if you let him go.”

Herrick tut-tutted and shook his head. “I don’t think you understand, Mitchell. You pointed it out yourself: I need invulnerable heirs. I need attack dogs that can’t be killed. And in case you haven’t noticed yet, in order for you to remain that way, you have to mate with Anders. I need you both together. You have no value whatsoever to the cause if I can’t use the mix of your bloods to regenerate in case something happens to me again, or to any of us. Besides, I can’t believe you are ready to let him go and renounce his cock.”

“You’re right,” Mitchell admitted, straightening his shoulders. “I’m not ready to renounce him. That’s why you are going to pay me a train ticket to visit him in London every first weekend of the month. It’ll be only me, not you. I’ll make sure he won’t lay eyes on you ever again.”

“What if you kill in London while you’re visiting him?” Herrick pointed out. “It’s not your hunting territory. I won’t be there to cover for you.” The vampire king had obviously not given up on the hope to keep both his venom-sons by his side. But Mitchell’s fortitude was just as unshakable.

“I know how far your arm extends,” Mitchell reminded him. “You’ll get me a hunting permit from the London folks easily.”

Herrick kept quiet for a while, only detailing Mitchell’s expression, trying to find any weakness; any crack in the solid facade, from where he could make the structure crumble. Not finding any, Herrick got back on his feet. “So this is it, then? Your Hippie phase is truly over. You’re ready to be a shark again.”        

“Isn’t it the reason why you recruited me? You should be happy. Do we have a deal?” Mitchell asked, holding his hand out for his venom-father to shake.   

Herrick looked down at the Irishman’s hand, and for a moment Mitchell was afraid he would not shake it. But then, the king’s cold palm touched his and his fingers, like tentacles, closed around his hand. “Yes. We do have a deal.”

The deal was sealed: for better and for worse. With mixed relief and consternation, Mitchell turned to leave, but then, he stopped in his tracks.  “By the way, I killed a woman: the owner of the Weston Travelodge Motel. I checked in under a false identity. I covered my tracks the best I could, but you’re going to have to play your contacts to bury the case.”

He had his back on Herrick, but he could hear the satisfied smile in his voice.

“Ah. Here he is: the Mitchell I know. It’s so good to have you back.”

Mitchell was only glad the shackles were at his own ankles now, and not at Anders’.

 

***

 

Bristol Temple Meads Railway Station was a crowded place on Monday mornings. The people massed under the black iron arcade did not really pay any attention to the tall, dark-haired man and the shorter, blond one, holding hands just outside the gates of platform number three. Even though she could now be seen by the living as well, the travellers did not notice either the woman in a grey lace dress, standing and waiting at a respectful distance of the two men.

The 9:34 train to London Paddington was to depart in less than five and it was the last chance for Mitchell and Anders to talk, face to face.  

Mitchell had managed to convince his mate to take the one-way tickets to London he offered him, but the turns of event left Anders bitter somehow.

“You asked me to save you: that’s what I did,” Mitchell asserted, squeezing Anders’ hands between the green wool of his gloves. “Colin is gone now, and I’m giving you the chance to elude from Herrick’s influence. You have to take it.”

“Make no mistake, I’m still on Herrick’s leash: the leash is just longer,” the Kiwi remarked.  

“I’m sorry if I can’t offer you anything better than this,” Mitchell regretted.  

“I’m not blaming you. I’m grateful for what you’ve done,” Anders corrected. “I just wish you did not turn it into some kind of martyrdom and put your own head under the axe to spare mine.”

Two chiming notes echoed in the station. _“The next train to depart from platform three is the 0934 Great Western Railway service to London Paddington, calling at Bath Spa, Chippenham, Swindon, Didcot Parkway, Reading and London Paddington. This train has 8 coaches. First class is at the front and standard class is at the middle and rear.”_

“I had no other choice,” Mitchell said, tracing circles inside Anders’ wrist with his thumb. “But you’ve got more to think about than just yourself. You have to take Dawn away from here. Her happiness depends on it.”   

Following Mitchell’s gaze, Anders looked above his shoulder, at the ghost woman who was waiting for him, fiddling with the two first-class tickets she held in her hands.  “You’re right,” he murmured, before his eyes found his lover’s again. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ve spent a century as Herrick’s sidekick,” Mitchell reminded him. “One more won’t kill me. I’m tougher than I look.”

_“May I have your attention, please? Customers are reminded to mind the gap between the train and the platform edge when boarding.”_

Anders put both arms around his mate’s neck and kissed him. Mitchell returned the kiss with the same fervor, holding his apex as tightly as he could. He was going to spend a whole month without feeling that body against his. He had to make the best of their last seconds together. The contact, lips to lips, was too brief for any of them to understand what they meant for each other.

_“Please note: to ensure a timely departure train doors may be locked shut up to 40 seconds before departure. Thank you.”_

“I really have to go,” Anders regretted.  

Mitchell let go of him. “Text me when you get there, huh?”

“I will.”  

He watched his lover and the ghost get through the gates. Dawn waved him goodbye just before boarding the coach in her boss’ wake. Mitchell waved back, knowing he would still be standing there long after losing sight of the leaving train.

Soon, the passengers started filling the platform again. The temptation of jumping in the next train to London nagged him.

A slender man appeared at Mitchell’s side, making the mirage of London vanish in a mental mist. “You can’t stay here all day. We have a work to do. Herrick wants it sorted out before midnight. ”

“He’s going to have his wish before midday,” Mitchell assured Seth. “Let’s get this over with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to those who are still reading this story and , moreover, to those who are taking the time to comment. :)


	15. Wilful Blindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t. Don’t come back for me,” Mitchell pleaded. “I forgive you. We’ll be together soon. I know this is hard, but please, be patient. ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Great thanks to my dear friend Kat for the betaing. xxx :)

The damp and chilly London weather deterred most English from eating outside at this time of the year. Hence, finding a good outdoor café in central London, one that wasn’t just two tables with wobbly legs plonked next to traffic lights, was an exploit in itself. But Anders had a nose for that kind of things, and the more expensive the better. When the menu announced the cheapest wine of the house to cost thirty pounds, he usually took it as a good omen. This is how Dawn and he ended up at the Bleeding Heart bistro on this fine afternoon, which was warm and sunny against all expectations.

Dawn had ordered a salad she could not eat, after having asked questions about every item on the menu, testing the waitress’ patient. The ghost was so happy to be able to interact with humans that her enthusiasm verged on overzealousness. Anders obediently ate half of her salad when Dawn spooned it into his plate, so the waitress would not think she did not like it.

London suited Dawn well. Anders had rarely seen his favorite ghost enjoying herself so much. She dwelled with delight on every new color, impression and discovery. She was glowing, and he wished he could share her zest for life (or afterlife, in her case), but his heart was simply not into it. He was a very old dog following an eager puppy around and sprawling on the carpet at the end of the day, heaving exhausted huffs in its grizzled whiskers. He had left Bristol and Herrick like one tears off a leech from their skin, but optimism had yet to emerge from this dreary relief.  

“Do you want some more coffee, sir?”

He failed to react until Dawn covered his hand with hers on the table and caught his attention: “Darling?”  

“Oh. Yes, please.” He pushed his empty cup toward the waitress. The young woman filled his cup and headed back inside the bistro.

Dawn squeezed his fingers as he wet his lips in the full-bodied coffee. He returned her smile over the rim of the cup. Dawn was so good at making them look like the perfect married couple that she could fool the keener of observers.

In the train from Bristol, they had worked on their background story.  They were now Mr. and Mrs. Johanssen. The story they had cooked up implied a meet-cute at Auckland University seven years ago and a wedding two years later. Nobody seated at this Cafe could have told that he was in truth a 136 year old vampire and she the dead daughter of a sporting goods magnate. It made it all easier that humans expected normality everywhere they went.

The so-called couple had settled down in an apartment in Chelsea, Southwest London, only a day after they set foot on the platform of Paddington station. Funny how a promise to pay cash for the whole year’s rent unlocked doors in the blink of an eye. It had been about as easy to find a place for JPR’s brand new office, on West Peter Street in Westminster. Not an hour after the furniture had been delivered, Dawn was already making calls to find potential clients.

When Anders put his cup down, a sun beam bounced off the metallic table and went directly into his pupils. The sensation used to be unpleasant in the extreme, but not anymore. Just like the great cross in front of St-Etheldreda’s hadn’t made him flinch when they had walked by the church to get to the bistro. He did not dare count the strange things that happened since the moment he had first tasted Mitchell’s blood. Even physical pain felt different. He could be detached from it, without even making a conscious effort. Like that time a few days ago when he had cut his index with a knife while cooking, and only noticed it when Dawn pointed out that he left blood on several utensils. The permanent cold that came with being a vampire was now an estranged feeling as well. His skin was hot: even hotter than a human’s. He was boiling from the inside. And there was the reflection in the mirror: apparently determined not to leave him. This bit had its perks, however. The taxi rides were much more comfortable without having to worry about the rear view mirror. A reflection was also a must when trying on a new suit at the tailor’s. He could blend amongst humans better than ever and go undetected, It made hunt a piece of cake. He was deadlier, stronger, unstoppable.  Now more than ever before, killing was natural, like breathing for any living creatures.

The vampires of London: he had met a few of them already. To Herrick’s demand, they had accepted him on their territory, but even without this, they probably wouldn’t have tried to mess with him. They sensed he was different and they avoided him. They were scared, even. When he crossed path with one of them, he saw the fear in their eyes and thought that maybe, he should be afraid of himself as well.

Anders claimed one victim per week, when Dawn was out exploring the city on her own: not because he was ashamed of what he did, but because it was more convenient this way. He had thought his new condition made him impermeable to moral remorse… until last night. The evening had started the same way as ever, following the same old plan. He walked into a bar, chatted up a lonely girl and brought her to a shady hotel.  It’s only once that she lay on the bed, lifeless and bloodless, that Anders truly noticed her short blond hair, small nose and round chin. The sheer resemblance with Dawn hit him like a lightning bolt.

“It could have been you… it could have been you,” he kept on repeating in dry sobs, clinging to his guardian ghost after having run home, measuring the true horror of his acts for the first time.

Dawn had asked no questions while she held him and petted his hair: maybe because she did not want to know, or because she knew too well and there was nothing to say that would change anything.  Her willful blindness was perhaps the only thing that prevented Anders from seeing fear on her face as well. He made her complicit of his crimes, and she was bound to him, with no way to escape it. She was attached to a monster who was slowly losing his grip on whatever control he had on his impulses.

“What am I becoming?” he had asked her, once the terror had abated a little.  

“I don’t know,” she had replied in all honesty.

 _Five days._ “ _Only five days”_ , he reminded himself.

Five days remained before the first weekend of March. In less than a week, he would have Mitchell in his arms again. He would crawl up his body: revel in his scent and taste. They would be one again, lost in insatiable concupiscence, oblivious to the cruel world and to their own monstrosity. He was done fighting whatever was between Mitchell and him. It was a fight he was never meant to win.

It was now an established fact that they belonged together, so Anders felt that he ought to make it good. After everything Mitchell had sacrificed for him, he at least owed him that. Finding inspiration from his observation of the average London human couples, he had already started making a list of the finest restaurants where he could bring Mitchell for dinner and a list of places they could visit during his lover’s stay.  Being a better judge of character than he was, Dawn had turned out to have very valuable insights in these matters.

The waitress came to the table to clean away their plates. She offered them the dessert menu which they both declined. Balancing plates on her arms, she went back inside to fetch their bill.

“You’re thinking about him,” Dawn remarked when the waitress was out of hearing range, acknowledging the elephant in the room for the first time since the morning.

 _Him._ They did not have to say a name to know who that was. Before Anders could pretend to deny it, the waitress was back. Grateful for the momentary distraction, he pulled out his wallet. He gave the woman a generous tip and a small, forced smile.  She thanked him, wished him and his ‘wife’ a nice day, and slipped away to another table.

“Why don’t you call him?” Dawn asked. She mimicked her ‘husband’ and raised from her chair. “You’ve been dying to talk to him since the morning. I know it’s what's eating you when you get all fidgety.” She hooked her arm around his and they walked down Saffron Hill Street at a leisurely pace.

“He’s probably busy.”

“You won’t know if he’s busy, unless you try to contact him,” she pointed out.

He gave a quiet nod for all response.

Seeing how unreceptive he was to her suggestion, she chose to let the matter drop and shifted her attention to a colorful flower stand on the sidewalk. She bought a dozen of yellow tulips under Anders’ fond gaze.

Perhaps he would call Mitchell later, when he would be at home and he could lock himself in his office, away from prying ears.

 

***

The clock on the bell tower of St-Mary Redcliffe indicated 1:25 AM, but the night was so foggy it prevented anybody from catching a glimpse of it Not having the moon to howl at, the dogs of the neighborhood barked at invisible enemies instead. Under the porch of the gothic church, the killer clad in a leather coat smoked a cigarette. The air was still; stale even, and Mitchell shuddered. It was running late. Someone should have already been there to pick him up.

The cigarette secured between his lips, he turned his phone on to check the time. He had one missed call from Anders. He resisted the temptation of calling back right away. Here was not a good place. Moreover, he was not sure calling Anders was a good idea at all.

During the month of them being apart, they had exchanged texts and called a handful of times, but with Herrick breathing down Mitchell’s neck days and nights, it was difficult to have a private conversation with his lover. But the real problem was that Anders wanted to know how Mitchell was doing; what he was doing.  Mitchell was reluctant to let Anders be aware of his activities and how he felt about them. If Anders knew, maybe he’d be tempted to get him out of there, and the deal with Herrick would be off. That was a risk he was not ready to take.  

The only advantage there was to be bound to do Herrick’s bidding was that he had now a way to channel the frustration that came with Anders’ absence: the physical and mental forlornness and the screaming need.    

Through the fog, Mitchell distinguished the headlight of a slowing car. He flicked the rest of his cigarette on the pavement and jogged across the grass area. Agile as a feline, he jumped over the fence that separated the church yard from the street.

“You’re late,” he admonished the driver when he sat on the passenger seat.

Seth mumbled an insincere apology under his breath and then, proceeded to ramble about an accident on East Street, the other side of the river, and about GPS malfunctions, but Mitchell was not listening anymore. He looked outside the window for the rest of the ride, wondering if Anders was asleep at this hour.

 

***

In his spartan but adequate office of B. Edward’s funeral home, the king of Bristol awaited the report of his hitman.

Mitchell threw on his desk a golden signet ring marred with blood.  “Chief constable Wilson won’t turn his back on us ever again.”

Herrick took the ring and inspected it. “Good.”

“Can I go now?” Mitchell asked, in a hurry to get this over with.

“Actually, I’ve called everyone for a little get-together in your honor,” Herrick informed the Irishman with a smile. “This was meant to be a surprise, but you know me, I always get too excited. They’re all waiting for you in the parlour.”  

“I’m afraid I’ll pass. I’m tired.”

Herrick stood and clapped his venom-son on the shoulder. “Come on! What you need is a nice drink and good company.”  

“Thanks but no,” Mitchell asserted, firmer this time. “I need to sleep and to wash bits of humanity off my hair, if you know what I mean.” He knew too well what Herrick’s intended by calling a general meeting. Once again, he wanted to exhibit his circus freak for everybody to see; in other words, use Mitchell as his boogeyman. The whole point was sending a message to the vampires: _“if you don’t do as I say, I’m going to send Mitchell after you_.”

“Don’t forget that you’re working for the greater good, John,” Herrick reminded him, letting go of his shoulder. “But you know this would be easier for you if your brother was around.”

“It’s not an option,” Mitchell snapped. “Good night.”

Careful to avoid the crowd in the parlour, Mitchell went straight back to his room: the one that Anders had previously occupied in the basement. He had just closed the door behind him when he noticed his visitor. Lauren was sitting on the bed, in dark lingerie that left little to the imagination and little doubt on her intentions.

Mitchell reopened the door. “Get out,” he ordered.

“But, Mitchell-“ she tried to protest.

“I told you to get out,” he insisted with a glare that would have intimidated the most confidents of vampires. She obeyed, but he should have known that he would not get rid of her so easily. From the other side of the door, she kept on nagging him: “He’s gone, Mitchell! Why are you denying yourself what you need? You are not made of wood, and neither am I!”

“Just go away, Lauren,” he begged more than he growled.

This time, she seemed to understand that there was nothing to get from him. She was gone for now, but Mitchell knew she’d be back.

He proceeded to strip and get rid of his clothes, maculated with the traces of his most recent murder, by shoving them into a plastic bag that he planned on burning in the incinerator later. A towel wrapped around his hips, he walked barefoot to the bathroom down the corridor and when he came back, clean from his most noticeable impurities, he had made the decision to call Anders back.

His wet curls of hair spread on the pillow of the camp bed, he texted his lover in the dark, only the light of the screen illuminating his face. _“Are you asleep?”_ he asked, hoping Anders was still up at this ungodly hour.

A response came almost as once:

 _2:43AM-Anders: “Not yet.”_

Mitchell’s thumbs hovered over the screen, hesitant, but before he could decide, another message came.

 _2:43AM-Anders: “I called you earlier.”_

_“I missed it. I’m sorry,”_ Mitchell apologized. _“Can I call you now or is this a bad time?”_

Ten seconds passed, twenty more, and then :

_2:45AM-Anders: “It’s fine. I’m alone. Dawn is in my office. You can call me.”_

 

***

 

Anders did not like wearing pajamas. Sleeping naked was his definition of paradise. Cohabiting with a ghost who walked through walls had forced him to change his habits, though. He scratched his leg and shifted in the bed, eyes glued to his phone. Even the priciest silk was itchy. It wasn’t his fault if he had a sensible skin. There was one exception, however. Mitchell’s hands had never brought any discomfort to his epidermis.

The phone rang once, but Anders waited, not wanting to appear needy, and he let it ring two more times before he answered. “Good night, old man.”

“Anders.”

Mitchell’s voice, rich like a strong coffee, sent a pleasant shiver down Anders’ back.  

“Are you in bed?” Mitchell asked.

“Yes. I was reading. You?” The small talk was nice in its simplicity and absence of drama. Anders savored it, knowing it would not last.

“I’m in bed as well. What were you reading?”  

“Hemingway. A Farewell to Arm,” Anders replied, putting the book away on the bedside table.  

“Are you kidding me?” Mitchell exclaimed. He seemed astonished by his choice of literature.

“I saw it in your motel room: thought I’d give it a shot.”

“And? How are you finding it so far?”

“Depressing as fuck,” Anders deadpanned.  

Fatigue was showing in the way Mitchell laughed.  “It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, with a smile his mate could hear through the phone.    

Anders rolled to his flank, he hugged one of his pillows to his chest with his free arm and curled up around it. “It’s good to hear you too. How are you?”

“You called me today?” Mitchell inquired, evading the question. “I hope everything’s good. How’s Dawn doing?”

“She’s great. Her happiness is getting in the way of my depression, though,” Anders admitted with a snigger.

“Oh baby,” Mitchell said in a fond sigh. “Don’t worry. Only five small days and I’m yours again. I’ll let you do whatever you want to me, if that can help you feel any better.”

Anders swallowed down and crossed his legs under the covers. The temperature in the room had suddenly climbed ten degrees. “I relish in the prospect.”  

He heard Mitchell’s breath hitch at the other end of the line. “God, Anders. I want you… I keep thinking of your shoulders and neck…”

“I’m not having sex over the phone with you, John Mitchell!” Anders stopped him right away.

“Why not?”

“Because, first of all, I can’t bite you over the phone, which takes all the fun out of it. Secondly, it’s just going to make me miss you even more.” It felt so strange. He had never dared say that sort of things out loud. “And thirdly,” he completed, quiet and serious, “this is not the reason why I wanted to speak to you.”

Through the telephone, he heard the rustling of sheets. Mitchell was getting more comfortable on his mattress to listen to him. “What is it?”

“I feel like there are things you should know and that I never took the time to tell you.”

He could hear the slight worry in the way Mitchell answered: “I’m listening.”

“In Dublin, when we were at that hotel,” Anders began, but then he stopped. Forgetting about the whole episode and pretending it never happened: that was the cautious path to thread. Usually, he would have taken this one gladly, but not this time. He had to take it off his chest, no matter how Mitchell would react. “I want you to know that I was not going to abandon you. Well, I was,” he admitted. “I thought it was the best decision, but as I walked out of the hotel, I realized I could not do it. I was coming back. I was coming back for you, but then that guy in a car gave me a note saying that Dawn was waiting for me in Bristol...”

“And you chose her,” Mitchell completed.  

The tone of reproach made Anders wince. He had anticipated a reply like this one, but it still stung. “Wouldn’t you have done the same for Annie?” he asked to defend himself.

“I’m sorry,” Mitchell conceded. “I’m being unfair.”

Anders left his bed and walked to the large bay window. London at night looked like a giant Christmas tree. On Santa Claus’ list, Anders was one of the bad kids. “I thought you’d be alright: that you’d be better off without me.”

“I wasn’t… I so wasn’t.”

“I know that now! I had no right to leave my mate the way I did,” Anders regretted. “I should have never left. I should have run back to that hotel room and take you with me. I wanted to come back for you. In a way, I still do. ”

“Don’t. Don’t come back for me,” Mitchell pleaded. “I forgive you. We’ll be together soon. I know this is hard, but please, be patient. ”

 

***

 

Only a mere seven years had passed since the last time Mitchell had set foot in London, and already, he found the city to be changed. Since the turn of the 21th century, it seemed like history accelerated at exponential speed. Everything transformed so fast Mitchell feared that soon, he would not be able to keep up.  He came from an era when everything was more durable, predictable and reassuring.

“We’re at the destination, sir,” the cabbie announced, pulling over along the street. “It’ll be sixteen pounds, please.”

“Thank you,” Mitchell said, handing the man twenty. “You can keep the change.”

Rain trickled down the window when Mitchell peeked through it. When he exited the taxi, he opened his umbrella to shield himself from the downpour. The modern, multi-story apartment building towered over the posh neighborhood and stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the identical, brick houses around.

Mitchell jogged up the concrete stairs. Once inside, he shook the water off the black umbrella and rang at the address Anders had texted him in the morning. He had told his lover he’d be there around 7 PM. He was an hour early, but he hoped Anders would not mind.

“Yes?” asked a feminine voice muffled by static noise through the intercom.

“Hey! It’s Mitchell,” he replied, hoping he was not mistaken on the address number.  

“Hi, Mitchell. It’s open. You can come up. It’s on the ninth floor. ”

The Irishman took a deep breath when the elevator door closed and trapped him in the cubical space. Water was dripping from the umbrella to the leg of his jeans. He did not pay any attention to the damp patch on his shin. His mind was elsewhere. He wondered how violently his instinct would react when he’d be in his male’s presence again: surrounded by his scent. He could already feel the beast inside pacing, eager to be set free. He screwed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. Keeping a control on it was imperative. He had to act civil, at least until he would be able to have some intimacy with Anders.

Nervousness made his hands moist and tingly when Mitchell knocked on the door of number twelve. He thought his stomach was going to explode from the pressure of the million butterflies in there.

Instead of his lover, it’s the guardian ghost who answered the door. Being at a level four on the scale of poltergeist energy since she had saved Anders from Colin Gundersen, she was able to make slight modifications to her outfit. She had turned the simple, gray lace dress she wore since the day of her death into a long, elegant evening gown.

“Dawn! You look amazing!” Mitchell exclaimed.

“Anders told me the exact same thing! Is this a conspiracy?” she asked with a pleased smile.

“It’s not a conspiracy,” Mitchell swore, hand on heart.  

“Then, I should start believing it.”

“You definitely should,” he approved.

She stepped aside and invited him in.

“Is Anders there?” Mitchell inquired, already looking around for his mate, even if the faint scent that floated in the apartment already gave him a clue.

“Sadly, no. But don’t worry, you’re in good hands,” she reassured him, taking his umbrella and his coat and putting them away in a closet.   

“I do not doubt it,” he gave back with a polite nod. He had a hard time keeping disappointment from showing in his expression. Maybe Anders did not look forward to their reunion as much as he did. “Where did he go?” he asked, after having got rid of his wet boots.

“He got an invitation to a cocktail party where we suspect there are going to be some influential people,” the ghost explained as she led her guest to the main living space. “He went there early to get the business part off his hands so you two can enjoy yourself for the rest of the evening. We are going to join him there in about an hour and a half. In the meantime, he left clothes for you on his bed. Have you eaten yet?”

“I’m not hungry. Thank you,” he declined.  

“No problem. Anders’ bedroom is the second door to the left. I’ll be in the dining room if you need anything.”

As Dawn left him to fend for himself, Mitchell took his time to detail his lover’s new home. The apartment was modern, wide and luminous.  The sparse, designer furniture displayed harmonious shapes of metal and wood. Mitchell had the impression of walking into photos out of a catalog, like nobody truly lived there everything was just made to be admired rather than used. The floors were of an angelic white, and the sofas in the living room of a light grey, as well as the carpets and lamps. Entire walls were made of glass windows. No matter in what room you stood, you had a magnificent view of the city. The rent had to be incredibly expensive, but Mitchell didn’t doubt Anders could cover it.

On Anders’ spacious bed, Mitchell found brand new leather shoes and also an aubergine dressed-up shirt, a black tie and black trousers, neatly folded in a pile and waiting for him. On top of the pile, a small box, adorned with a black silk bow, took pride of place. Mitchell picked it up and played with it for a while, not daring opening it. Once he overcame his irrational reluctance, he pulled on the ribbon and, inside the box, he found a silver tie clip and a watch. He was unsure what to make of such generosity. He had not expected to receive gifts. Anders’ presence would have been enough. But the blond vampire seemed to have anticipated that he would not come to London dressed appropriately for a cocktail party and had taken upon himself to provide for that.

Mitchell stripped down and put his new clothes on, only to discover with astonishment that they fitted him like a glove. They clung to his shoulders and waist as if they had been tailored especially for him, which, knowing Anders, was probably the case. To achieve that, Anders had had to remember the exact shape and size of his body by heart, to the littlest details.  A curious warmth spread in Mitchell’s stomach at the thought.

The Irishman had to admit that he liked the image the bathroom’s mirror shot back at him once he was dressed. The only problem was the tie. To say that he did not master the art of the Windsor knot was an understatement. He had a long-term dislike of ties. He always considered them to be evil fabric snakes plotting to choke him to death.  On the other side, to be handsome for his apex male, he was ready to endure that and much more.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he admitted to Dawn, sheepish and defeated, when he joined her in the dining room a few minutes later.  What he had around his neck looked more like an origami giraffe than a tie.

She came to his rescue with a soft chuckle. “I’m going to tell you a secret: you are not the only one,” she confided while her expert hands transformed the mess into a proper knot. “I helped Anders so many times I doubt he even remembers how to do it by himself.”

As Dawn was busy calling a taxi, Mitchell took a look at the party invitation card that Anders had left for them on the kitchen counter. There was not much to see there: a white cardboard square with golden letters indicating the name of the host, which did not ring any bell, followed by the time and place. He was about to slip it into his pocket when he noticed something at the back of the invitation. Someone had drawn a sloppy “X” in red ink. Most people would have just ignored it, but it made Mitchell frown. He had seen this before.

The arrival of their cab being imminent, he followed the ghost downstairs and they waited outside the apartment building, under Mitchell’s umbrella.

Dawn outstretched a hand outside the cover of the umbrella, palm opened, facing the sky. Despite the heavy rain, it remained completely dry. Mitchell wondered what it felt like to be a ghost: in a permanent sensory desert, not able to feel the world around. Sometimes, it seemed to Mitchell that he was feeling too much of it.

“This is a very nice watch,” Dawn commented, grazing the piece of jewellery Mitchell wore at his wrist with the tip of her index.  

“Yes it is. Anders has taste.”  

“And the color of the shirt brings out the darkness of your hair and eyes quite nicely,” she added.   

Her opened admiration made him shy, all of a sudden. He looked down at the tip of his new shoes. “I don’t know what I did to deserve being spoilt that way,” he admitted.

“I’m not sure it was you as much as he that Anders was trying to spoil,” she remarked with a wink.

The taxi decelerated in front of the building, putting an end to their conversation. The ghost and the vampire slalomed across the rain puddles and Mitchell hastened to get the door for her.  

“Chivalry is not dead after all,” she told him with a hint of mischief as she accepted his help.

“In my case, it’s arguable,” he gave back, returning the wink from earlier.

She was still giggling when Mitchell told the address to the driver.

He could find reasons to be jealous of Dawn, but at the same time, he perfectly saw why Anders loved her so much and that humbled him.

 

***

With its eight chimneys, its private tennis and golf course in the back garden and multiple terraces, “mansion” would be a more appropriate word to describe the house where the party took place. The taxi driver dropped Mitchell and Dawn near the fountain that stood in the middle of the circular driveway. At the door of the mansion, a man wearing an old-fashioned three-piece suit took a look at their invitation and let them through without a word.

“I have a feeling this is not your average cocktail party,” Mitchell whispered into Dawn’s ear. The hair at the back of his neck stood up like the scruff of a growling wolf. Something was off and his skin prickled with unease.

The house was crowded with people, but he could not hear a single heartbeat. He and Dawn had ended up in what vampires called a “house party”. It consisted in finding a luxury house, invade it with as many vampire guests as possible, lock the human occupants somewhere until everybody got hungry. The poor owners were served as dessert at the end of the party. It seemed odd to him that Anders would wish for them to meet in such a place. He must have known that this had never been Mitchell’s cup of tea.

He and Dawn walked into a first living room. A large piano occupied the center of the room. The chatters died and all eyes were drawn to Mitchell as soon as he entered. He had never met any of those vampires, and yet, they stared at him as if he had personally insulted each of them.

Dawn noticed the sudden tension and the stiffening of Mitchell’s bicep in her hand. She gave him a questioning look but his lips were sealed in a thin line. He led her out of the room. He had caught Anders’ scent and his priority was to track it down until he found him. He was not able to shake out the feeling that this – this house, this party, was a trap, an ambush.

 


	16. As They Sowed so Shall we Reap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My most grateful thanks to Katyushha who stayed up all night to beta this chapter.

The next room had a home theater and a pool table. Once again, the vampires gave Mitchell furtive glances and murmured to one another.  This time, Mitchell’s attention was not so much on their behavior, but on the man standing alone in the corner of the room, holding a glass of red wine. Only a man who had known the Roaring twenties could wear a black suit and a bowtie with such elegance. Mitchell stopped, mesmerized for a second by the handsome profile. Cerulean eyes met his after what seemed to be an eternity.

“Woah, Mitchell!” Anders exclaimed, putting his glass down on the next available surface.

Dawn let go of Mitchell’s arm and the lovers met halfway across the room. ‘I feel like I’m living a fairytale,” Anders teased, smoothing the aubergine shirt on Mitchell’s chest. “You are Cinderella, escorted to me by the fairy ghost-mother.”

Before Mitchell could say anything, Anders had already pulled him into a short but intent kiss that electrified him through and through.

“Thanks a lot, Dawnsie, for having brought him to me in one piece,” Anders thanked his guardian ghost when she joined them. His hand moved from Mitchell’s shoulder to the small of his back.

“You’re welcome,” she replied with a playful little curtsey. “Now that my delivery’s made, I’m going to leave you two to catch up and I’ll go and take some fresh air in the gardens.”

“Awesome,” Anders commented, eyes already back on his prize.

Dawn tiptoed away and left them to enjoy their reunion.

“You look dashing, you really do,” Anders said. “For a second, I did not recognize you. I was wondering who invited that hot piece of arse.”

An impish smirk spread on Mitchell’s lips. “You are a bloody liar.”

Anders ducked his head to the side with the same type of smile. “I am. Nice to meet you.”

Mitchell already felt waves of lust pulsing under his skin like a small tsunami. His fingers slipped to the back of Anders’ neck. The skin there was burning hot. The shorter man did not try to escape the touch or to move away. He deliberately sought it, enjoyed it even. Mitchell marvelled at the fact Anders was so open about his attraction to him now.

Mitchell knew that the way he acted around Anders was as subtle as if he had the words _“I need to mate”_ branded across his forehead. They were a hunters ‘item’.  The other people in the room were all vampires. They would see it as a perfectly natural thing if Anders decided to have his claim on his male right away, on the pool table. But Anders had the presence of mind to figure out that “exposing’ themselves this way, amongst congeners whose status as friends or foes had yet to be determined, was less than ideal. “Easy… easy, boy,” Anders whispered into his partner’s ear and his hand came resting on his hip in a firm gesture that meant to calm him down.

It worked. Mitchell’s muscles relaxed instantly and his fangs retreated into his gums. It was incredible just how quick his body was to obey Anders in any circumstances. If his apex decided that now was not the time for sex, he yielded without question.

“Don’t mistake me, I’m glad to be with you at last,” Mitchell assured his lover in a hushed tone, “But, why here, if may I ask?”

“The invitation led me to believe it was one of those charity events with champagne, canapés and a chocolate fountain. Trust me, I had no idea it was going to be filled with vampires. If I had known, I wouldn’t have come, let alone bring you.”

The other vampire guests had gone on about their conversations, pretending to ignore the couple, which did not dissipate Mitchell’s discomfort in the slightest.

“I tried to talk to people since I arrived earlier, but everybody is mute. They’re staring when they think I’m not looking their way and it’s giving me the creeps,” Anders complained.  

“Yeah, I feel the same. Maybe we should get out of here.”

Anders had been deaf to his suggestion. He had suddenly tensed up and narrowed his eyes like a cat that just spotted a dog. He was staring at something behind him. Mitchell shot a glance over his shoulder and he noticed the newcomers: a tall, tattooed and broad shouldered female vampire, accompanied by a skinny teenager with short hair.   

“You know him?”

“Her,” Anders corrected, a note of growing nervousness in his voice. “It’s Felicity Gallagher.”

“Sorry, who?”

“She’s barking mad,” Anders stressed. “Fuck! She’s coming our way.” He grabbed Mitchell’s hand. “Come!” he urged him, dragging him out of the room through the opposite door. Mitchell followed without a word, though his mind was running with multiple questions.

“I hope she didn’t see me,” the Kiwi worried as they escaped up the stairs, only to discover that the mansion was a real maze. They could well get lost trying to shake Felicity Gallagher off their tracks.

Spotting a suspicious shadow at the far end of a hallway, Anders’ first reflex was to push Mitchell into the nearest room and to lock the door behind them. They stayed mute for a long moment, listening to the footsteps in the corridor. When the noise faded away and everything was silent again, Anders allowed himself to breathe again. “Shit! That was close.”

“Are you going to explain what is going on?” Mitchell pressed him. “Who’s that gal?”

Anders wiped sweat from his forehead. “After Dundalk, when you were injured, I went in a brothel outside Dunleer to find a prostitute for you to drink from. Gallagher was the brothel’s owner. She figured out I was lying to her and she did not like it one bit. I was lucky to get out of there alive.”

“What’s she doing here?”

“The fuck if I know, but I don’t like it.”

“Listen. The door’s locked,” Mitchell reassured him. “I would be surprised if she tried to ram it down. Besides, I’m not even sure she had the time to recognize you.”

“Maybe, but I had to give her one of my guns in exchange for the prostitute. Even if bullets can’t kill me, I’m not sure I want to take one in the chest again. Fuck! I was so stupid to come here unarmed!”

Mitchell took Anders’ arms and held him still. “I’m here, okay?” he reminded him. “As long as we’re together, we’ll be alright.”

Letting the tension lift off his shoulders a little, Anders let Mitchell’s hands find their way to his back, under his jacket. “You make it sound so real.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Anders stretched his neck to make his mouth available for his taller lover. “Kiss me,” he demanded, eyes half lidded.

The light from the window descended on his throat and cut his features in sharper, alluring angles.

Mitchell kissed the cleft on his chin. This is not how Anders wished to be kissed and a word of protest formed on his lips, but Mitchell devoured it right away before it was even born.

Teasing tongues and nipping teeth found their rhythm in a waltz interspersed with shuddering breaths. Fangs raised in Mitchell’s own mouth in response, when he met the sharp edges of Anders’ with his tongue. Their kiss could not stay slow and sensuous. Not when the need to mate imposed its law.  

Their kiss grew from passionate to desperate. Both of Anders’ hand were fisted into the silk at the back of his shirt and Mitchell prayed to hear the fabric tear up.  His skin was ablaze. At this point, all form of clothing was a torment. Getting rid of it would also be his doom, because Anders’ skin was a powerful accelerant that would turn the torment into agony.

Without breaking their ferocious embrace, Anders manhandled his partner to the other side of the room. It’s only when they hit a mattress that Mitchell realized they were in a guest bedroom. He welcomed Anders’ weight above him with a wanton sound at the back of his throat.  

Anders’ irises were already two black pools of need. “I miss those helpless moans you make when you can’t take it anymore. You’re not quite there yet, but you will be soon.” He had every intention to keep his promise, if the buttons of the aubergine shirt he had already popped open were any indication.

“You want to do it here?” Mitchell muttered into the next kiss bestowed upon him.

Anders released his lover’s bottom lips from between his teeth. “Why not? It’s as romantic as it can get. And you said that no harm could get to us here. I trust you.”

A wicked grind of hips from his mate reminded Mitchell how pressing his own arousal was. His eyes rolled back and he responded in the same manner. The pressure of Anders’ perfectly hard erection to the front of his thigh was reassuring in a very sexual way. His apex was there to take good care of him and would make sure not to leave him dissatisfied. Mitchell knew he was going to be treated like a prince. He could abandon himself in Anders’ hands.

He soon found himself naked, except for the tie Anders was adamant about leaving around his neck. The blond vampire, still half-dressed, was exploring every sensitive spot in order to find a good place for the deep bite that would prepare Mitchell’s body and make it pliant for the coupling.

As the desire grew into his stomach to an unbearable level, Mitchell felt the telltale tingle in his eyes and his mouth roof. His throat burned with the thirst for Anders’ blood. But this time, he resisted to the beast that was striving to take over. This is not what he wanted, not this time. “Anders!” he called out.  

At the urgent tone of the request, some of the blackness dissolved from Anders’ orbs. He abandoned the intended biting spot on the brunet’s stomach and he crawled up the bed to be at his partner’s eye level.  

Mitchell took his lover’s hand and placing it on the side of his face.  “Before this gets any further, I have something I would want to try.”

“I’m listening.”

“I want to have sex with you.”

Anders scratched the stubbly cheek gently and he reached to the side of Mitchell’s neck to thread one finger into a dark curl. “That was the plan all along, honey,” he purred.  

“I don’t think you understand what I mean.”

“Enlighten me, then.” 

“I want to have you without the monsters being involved,” Mitchell ventured. “I want it to be just you and me…”

It took a moment for Anders to process his lover’s unusual proposition. “You mean, you want sex without the blood and the biting?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

Mitchell’s head sank further into the pillow and he covered his eyes with both hands. “Never mind. Forget I asked,” he groaned.  

“No! No!” Anders countered, pushing Mitchell’s hands away from his face. “I think that’s… kinky. I’m just not sure I’d be able to keep myself from vamping out and biting you when it gets intense.”

“I’ve never been good at keeping sex and blood separate either, but I want to try,” Mitchell risked. He reached for Anders’ trousers and toyed with one belt loop. “Herrick wants us to think that what happens between us is the result of the craving; that blood is the sole thing that’s driving us together, but I refuse to believe that. When I look at you, when I touch you, I do hunger for you, that’s a fact… but this is not only about the thirst, or even the lust. Can’t you see there’s more?”

“Since that last night in the motel, I quit asking myself too many questions about us,” Anders declared, taking the upper hand by pinning Mitchell down and straddling his hips with his knees. “I want you: therefore I take you, as long as you want me too. It’s as simple as that.”

Mitchell grasped his mates’ forearms and dragged him down on top of him. The soft catch of the blond vampire’s chest hair to his nipples made Mitchell gasp with anticipation, but his whole attention was captivated by the gaze of the pale eyes boring into his. He would be ready to sell his soul a thousand times again, to Herrick or to the devil himself, for a single night with that man. His breath gusted over the sensual lips hovering a few centimeters from his own. “Sometimes, I feel like the only part of me that’s still real… is the one that loves you.”

The words had come out on their own, and there was no way to take them back now. Mitchell didn’t want to, anyway.

He still had his tie on. It rested across his chest, forgotten so far, but Anders closed his fingers around it and he pulled Mitchell up with him as he rose and sat back on his heel. “You don’t love me. Love is not for creatures like us.”

They were still so close their noses nearly touched. “Maybe you’re right, but there I cannot find a more accurate way to describe what I feel for you,” Mitchell stated, standing his ground.   

Anders stared back, holding his breath, with the expression of someone who’s a second away from jumping into a precipice.

“Me neither.”

The avowal was followed by the kind of silence that could only be heard after a nuclear explosion. There was nothing more to say.

Their mouths crashed together and their kiss was a voracious storm that threatened to destroy everything in its wake.

As he freed Anders from his trousers, Mitchell started to realize that wanting to make love like humans was nothing but wishful thinking on his part. When he laid Anders down on the bed and he blanketed the shorter frame with his, he thought he would lose it for good. The golden and tender skin of Anders’ neck was made thinner from lust and his delicate veins were pumping closer to the surface, inviting Mitchell to bite. If Mitchell had been human, he would be thinking about the skin solely, about its warmth and smooth quality, and not about what ran underneath. Nothing else would matter than the synchronized racing of their hearts. Sadly, they were creatures designed for the purpose of craving and enjoying each other’s blood.  And still, he was touched to see Anders doing his best to fight the urge even if, placed as they were, with their respective necks at fangs’ reach, it made every second a new challenge.

Sticky moisture escaped in rivulets from somewhere between his shoulder blades and it took a moment for Mitchell to understand it came from scratches Anders had dug into his flesh with his nails. Anders brought his bloodied and trembling fingers to his mouth, but before he could lick the digits clean, Mitchell laced his fingers with Anders’ and trapped his hands on the mattress. Anders snarled in protest and squirmed to escape. “I don’t think I’ll be able to resist,” he complained when he quit on struggling.  

Mitchell gave his lips an appeasing kiss. “Do you still want to try?”

“Yes… I’m just very bad with self-control.”

With a pillow case grabbed somewhere on the bed, Mitchell cleaned Anders’ soiled hands and his own back as much as he could. Then, he undid the tie that was still around his neck and he brushed Anders’ forearm with the the silky material. “I think it’d be easier for you if I tied you up...”

Anders’ eyes were impossibly back: the venom having eaten up his entire pupils, only leaving the white unveiled.  “Okay,” he accepted without a hint of hesitation. He held his hands out, wrists pressed together for his mate to bind them. Such spontaneous trust had Mitchell’s cock twitch as an instant response.

“This is getting kinkier as it goes,” Anders commented with a raucous laugh, once he had both hands secured over his head in a tight knot. Strong as he was, Anders would have no problem tearing off the tie or even breaking the headboard, but the bondage would help him keep some control nonetheless.  His chest was so alluring in that position, lithe and tone. Mitchell watched with marvel the play of muscles when Anders writhed on the bed between his legs, hips rubbing on the inside of the taller man’s thighs.

“You are so beautiful I barely dare touch you,” Mitchell said, in awe, looking down at the heavenly vision displayed for him.  

“Now you know what I’m going through when you offer yourself to me,” Anders teased. “But I hope you’re going to dare touch me at some point because I’m dying down here.”    

“Hold on,” Mitchell whispered. If they wanted it to work, they had to take their time. His palm traveled across the reddish fur of his lover’s pectorals and grazed a sensitive nipple that hardened instantly, drawing a shaky breath from the restrained man.

“You are leaking on my stomach, baby boy,” Anders remarked.

Mitchell looked down and noticed the small pool of semen just under Anders’ navel. “I’m sorry.”   

“No need to be sorry. But since you’re denying me your blood, come up here at least and let me have a little taste of your arousal.”

Anders made his want unmistakable by moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue. Mitchell’s cock already throbbed with the need to be kissed, licked and sucked.

“Don’t be shy,” Anders encouraged him.   

Eager to comply to any indecent demand his male might form, Mitchell moved up the bed. He braced himself against the wall, fingers splayed on the dark paint. Mitchell’s moans of pleasure and relief were already verging on the animalistic growl as soon as Anders sucked the tip of his cock into his avid mouth. Mitchell pushed a little deeper into the wet heat and Anders allowed it, humming around him in approval. Carefully, Mitchell pulled out and in again. “God…Anders,” he cursed. The image of his cock sliding between his lover’s lips was both delightful and filthy. He cried out from the caress of Anders’ tongue along his shaft and his fingernails scratched the paint on the wall. The further he pushed into the welcoming mouth, the more Anders’ moans increased and Mitchell figured out that his mate really wanted to have his mouth fucked. Mitchell knew better than to disappoint, so he let go and enjoyed the treatment with rapid yet shallow thrusts of his hips. His lower back was covered in fresh sweat and his arms already shaking from the strain put on his nerves and muscles. At some point he had to slide out of the sweet, wet warmth, because his body had other imperious needs demanding to be catered to.

Anders licked his reddened lips. “Thank you,” he murmured, as if he had been the one receiving the favor.  “Are you going to ride me now, beautiful boy?” he asked, trying not to show his own impatience.

“Yes… fuck… yes, I will,” Mitchell hastened to assure him. He made a quick deal of fumbling through the drawers to find a bottle of lube. Apparently, the owners of the house wanted their guests to be well-supplied for any occasion. Anders cocked an eyebrow when Mitchell pulled a condom from the drawer. “We’re doing it in the human fashion,” Mitchell reminded him as he carefully unrolled the condom on his hard sex.

Hunger prowled around both of them, ready to make them lose their mind. Only the most intense and sharp of pleasure would be enough to overpower the thirst for blood. Anders screwed his eyes shut and threw his head back when Mitchell closed his hand around his throbbing cock and guided him into him without further preparation.

Anders’ toes curled, as did his hips. Mitchell lowered himself on him and Anders entered his lover as deep as their bodies allowed it, making the brunet moan in turn.

“How come you just feel tighter every time I fuck you?” Anders marvelled.

Mitchell bit his lower lip. “How come it feels like you’re thicker every time you’re inside me?”

“Too thick?”

Mitchell shook his head with vigor: free curls flying in every direction. “No, it’s okay.” He shut his eyes and shuddered. “It feels so good.”   

Anders tugged on his bonds furiously. He wished he could be able to run his hands on Mitchell’s strong thighs, grab his waist and fuck him at his own pace. When Mitchell finally decided to start moving, one hand set to the middle of Anders’ chest for balance, they both vamped out from the sudden shot of adrenaline and voluptuousness. Caught in an inescapable maelstrom, they did not try to beat the darkness back just yet. They let the beasts take over for a short while. Anders’ mouth was agape, to let exclamations of pleasure escape and fill the room. He also exhibited those long, white and sharp fangs that challenged Mitchell’s instincts. It would be so easy to untie Anders’ hands and let his apex take him completely: with cock and fangs.

Mitchell’s trembling hands brushed over the shorter man’s sides, they went up his arms to land on his tied wrists.

At the last second, Anders chased the ink from his eyes. “No! Leave it on,” he demanded. “Just do me, babe, and try not to think about anything else.”

That was an excellent piece of advice, Mitchell decided: to stop thinking about his selfish lust for blood and focus on Anders’ pleasure: focus of those dilated pupils, on the plump lips that bloomed open to liberate a lascivious lament, on the captivating arch of that back, on the rapturous rolls of hips. He enjoyed seeing Anders restrained: so completely offered, but he wished he could have those hands grabbing and parting his buttocks - accompany the steady movement he had set for their coupling.

Even if he longed for Anders’ touch, having his mate tied up like that added this tingle of excitement down to the base of his spine. What he was doing was prohibited by many unwritten laws of the vampire world. Anders was his apex male. Mitchell was not supposed to be the one in control. He should know his place, untie Anders and accept the punishment he deserved for having overstepped. But Anders had consented to this little game and if anything, it made Mitchell fall for him even harder.

He was so enraptured watching Anders fall apart under him that he did not realize how much the ball of heat and tension sitting low in his stomach had grown scorching and unbearable. Anders’ cock filled him and stimulated him just the right way, and Mitchell wanted it to last for hours on end. Some blood on his tongue would have certainly increase his stamina, but without it, he was reduced to the flaming, overwhelming and short-lived passion of a mere human being. When blood drinking was involved, the pleasure was so acute it felt like it cut through his bones.  The sex stripped from it was another experience altogether. Instead, the delightful sensation grew in him like the tide, claiming him inch by inch and enfolding him whole.

A simple look into Anders’ black orbs was enough for Mitchell to know for his lover was dangerously close to climax as well. His body was sleek with sweat and Mitchell shivered when he laid his hands down on the tight stomach muscles to be able to meet Anders’ thrusts that got faster, harder, more abandoned.

Their orgasm whisked them away. They crossed the finish line together, in a string of throaty groans and strangled panting. Mitchell collapsed above his partner, pressing his face into his shoulder.

He emitted a weak groan of protest when Anders slipped out of his body. It felt so right to be one with his lover, he was going to miss it until they’d fuck again.  

Mitchell freed Anders’ hands from the silk tie. He massaged, kissed and rubbed his wrists, looking for bruises, but they did not seem to have suffered too much. “You once told me you would cut my balls off of I tried to tie you up,” he reminded Anders, his breath ghosting over the reddened skin.

“I was stupid,” Anders replied, his voice only a thin murmur coming from the comfortable depths of his afterglow.   

“No. You weren’t,” Mitchell objected, rolling off the warm body. “You barely knew me, and I’m no choir boy, that’s a fact. You were right to be wary.”

“Still, I wonder…” Anders trailed off, gaze fixed on the high ceiling. He stuck his chin out as he pondered.

“Yes?”

“Who’s the real you, between Big Bad John and the sap who spouts Gaelic endearments when he thinks I can’t hear them?”

Mitchell propped himself up on his elbow and he took his time before replying, weighing every word before he voiced them. “I think they’re both me: the cruel and the gentle. Maybe I wasn’t always like that, but that’s who I am now. Do you think you can live with that?”

It was Anders’ turn to remain in silent contemplation. Then, he did something Mitchell had not anticipated. He pulled him in for a confident kiss that, for once, was more an answer than a question. “I do,” he finally said.  

Careful not to let an inch of void separate them, they exchanged kisses for a long moment, touching everywhere they reached. Then, they left the bed just long enough to clean up in the private bathroom.

When they came back, Anders started showing severe signs of thirst. “My tongue is like sandpaper,” he rasped. He exhibited his nude body without shame, demanding Mitchell’s attention and knowing the right buttons to push. “I’ve been good, have I?”  The big, imploring eyes under blonde lashes, had their effect on Mitchell, he could not deny it. “Can I take a sip, just a tiny little one? Not much,” Anders pleaded.

Seeing his partner crave and suffer was difficult for Mitchell. He understood that his instinct to preserve his mate’s well-being would always supplant his will to be human. What they had done earlier was nothing more than satisfying a kink, role-play; they pretended to be humans. It was a fantasy, nothing else. In the end, they were the same old beasts, with the same physical imperatives that came with that condition. _“You’re trying to force her into being something she is not_ ,” Herrick had once accused him when Mitchell was still trying to ‘save’ Lauren. Perhaps, he was making the same mistake with Anders.  He petted the soft hair at the back of Anders’ head. “It’s alright, baby. Take what you need,” he consented.    

Mitchell let Anders go down on him and suck a bruise into the flesh of his inner thigh. He shuddered when Anders bit into it. Trying not to disturb his lover while he fed, Mitchell shifted to the bed and he reached for Anders’ thigh before drawing out fangs, thus completing the circle of blood and venom.

As soon as they were both sated and had licked the wounds clean to seal them, Anders crawled back into Mitchell’s arms. He hummed, drowsy, when Mitchell dropped four kisses to his shoulder and neck. Soon, they both drifted into slumber.

 

***

_Paris 1933_

_Twelve crystal glasses of different size and full of blood were aligned on a low table. An uplifting melody came through the gramophone’s horn. On a Recamier sofa l_ _ay_ _a girl, her white, messy underwear like rumpled feathers. Her arms were opened like the wings of a dove struck to death by lightning in the middle of a storm, No breath made her breast heave and no pulse made_ _the skin on her neck_ _flutter. She had puncture wounds al, over her body._

 _The music, the coppery and heady smell of mixed blood and perfume in the air, the box of cigar_ _s_ _he still hadn’t touched: this was Herrick’s favored aesthetic. Mitchell tagged along like a faithful valet._

_“Something, something, something A, something something X…” Herrick thought out loud, squinting at the crossword puzzle in the newspaper._

_Mitchell paced behind the large, black sofa where his venom-father sat. The right side of his face hurt like a bitch. He could barely see under his swollen eyelid, but mainly, he tried to nurse the throbbing pain in the vicinity of his lower teeth by rubbing his jawline. “Ahh. It’s everytime I open my mouth. And there is a dent.”_

_Herrick ignored the younger vampire’s complaints. “Something, something…”_

_“Yeah, there is a definite dent,” Mitchell noted. “Here, have a feel of this.”_

_Herrick lifted his head from his reading. “Don’t come any closer to me,” he ordered when he heard Mitchell approach._

_“No, seriously, have a feel of it.”_

_“I said, do not come near me,” Herrick articulated in such an icy tone that Mitchell stopped in this tracks._

_He slowly closed his mouth. He took a few steps away, but was soon back with an angry scowl. “What? You want me to apologize? I’m the one wearing my face inside out!” he blustered, pointing at his bruises. “You’re the one who should be apologizing!”_

_“I told you to let her die. You did not listen. I had no choice.”_

_“I wanted some company!” Mitchell yelled, stomping his foot on the floor in frustration._

_“You’ve got company.”_

_“Other company, Herrick!”_

_“I said no recruitment for you.”_

_“And why not?”_

_Herrick crossed his legs and la_ _id_ _the newspaper on his lap. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”_

 _“No, no, why not, Herrick?” Mitchell insisted. “Aw. Did you have something special planned?” he ironized. In absence of an immediate answer, he went to the armchair_ _facing Herrick, grabbed a decanted full of blood and he collapsed in the piece of furniture. He threw his head back with a moody snort._

_“You know, the old ones, they kill at will,” Herrick said, detailing the dead girl pensively, “but they do not recruit lightly. In fact most of them only do it once. They choose a protégé. It’s an eternal bond.” He made sure to put an emphasis on the last two words._

_Mitchell straightened on his seat just long enough to pour some of the decanter’s content in an empty port glass. “I don’t need a protégé,” he sulked._

_“It isn’t always about you,_ _” H_ _errick pointed out, before he folded the paper neatly. He left it on the sofa and rose. “Why do you think some of us live forever and others are like fireflies?” he asked. He opened a box of cigars, chose one and cut the tip of it. He brought it to his nose and inhaled the tobacco scent._

_“Because some of us are smart and some of us are stupid?” Mitchell guessed. He had never understood why Herrick bought cigars since he always was a non-smoker._

_“If you choose an heir, they inherit all your secrets. They become a dark angel, your protector, your saviour.”_

_Frowning hurt, Mitchell discovered. “Saviour from what?”_

_“Perhaps a fate we were led to believe there is n_ _o_ _salvation from.”_

_“So…” Mitchell trailed off, finding the conversation of a fresh interest. He rested his elbow on his knee. “If something happens to you…”_

_“They can bring you back,” Herrick supplied._

_The shadow of an intrigued smile passed over the Irishman’s lips. “And that’s possible?”_

_“That and so much more.”_

_His venom-father had been spouting things about heirs and secrets before, but this time he had been less vague than usual. The thing with Herrick was that Mitchell was never too sure if he was being honest or if he was just playing another cat and mouse mind game. “So you want me to be your heir…” Mitchell said, with a slight, mocking wiggle of his shoulders._

_Herrick kept himself from giving a confirmation or a denial._

_They heard a knock. Then, the door opened and the hotel manager appeared. First, his eyes fell on the dead girl and grew wide from shock, and then he noticed the two men sitting and drinking casually around the body._

_Mitchell leant forward with a complacent smirk.  “Ah. Tomb service.”_

 

***

 

“Tráthnóna maith,” Anders greeted him in a whisper when Mitchell opened his eyes.

Mitchell noticed that they were still skin against skin, legs tangled, and that Anders had tucked them both under the covers. He stretched his spine with a smile. “Good evening to you too,” he replied, his hands roaming the broad expanse of the other vampire’s back. “How long have I been asleep?”

“About an hour.”

Mitchell breathed in his lover’s distinctive scent and his lips found Anders’ in a lazy kiss. His mate tasted like sex and good rest: an intoxicating combination.

Anders groped for something under the covers. He reached for Mitchell’s arm and put his watch back around his wrist. “In another life, if both of us were not what we are, I would have spoilt you with all kinds of expensive gifts: watches, clothes and sport cars,” he mused, playing with Mitchell’s fingers as he spoke. “I swear you would have squeezed money out of me as easily as with a freaking lemon. I would have showed you off in social events, make them all envy me, even the straight ones. All those businessmen tired of their wives with fake boobs, they would have fantasized about what they could do to a sexy young man such as yourself, but at the end of the party, I would have always been the one bringing you home.”

A grin stretched Mitchell’s lips. “Oh, I would have been your trophy boyfriend, is that what you’re telling me?”

“Totally,” Anders approved with a smirk. “Tonight, you proved yourself worthy of being my favorite arm-candy.”  

They brought their foreheads together. The teasing banters had led way for a more intimate and somber atmosphere. They stared down at the ticking watch until Mitchell spoke up again. “What were you like as a human?”

Anders sighed, but didn’t try to squirm out.  “I was afraid to be lonely. You?”

“Striving for happiness.”

Anders let go of his fingers and chose the dark curls as his new target for affectionate toying. He pushed Mitchell’s hair behind his ear and scratched his scalp with his blunt nails. “Do you think I would have managed to make you happy?” he asked.

Mitchell leant in the touch. “Yes, I do believe it. And I think I would have erased your fear of being alone.” The only reason why they were speaking of a normal life together at the conditional tense was because Herrick had decided they were his puppets. The unfairness of it awoke anger and frustration in Mitchell’s guts. When he was still in Bristol, under his venom-father’s foot, he was somewhat of a meek and obedient sheep, but now that there was 200 kilometers separating them, he was not as acceptant anymore. “Does it really matter that we were brought together by Herrick’s will?” he asked Anders. “That’s what we choose to do, together, that truly matters. That’s still possible. We can run away, somewhere he’ll never find us, and be together. We can keep each other good.”

Anders chewed on the inside of his cheek and he shook his head, regretting not being able to agree with Mitchell. “You and I know we are going to do the exact opposite. Tonight was a lovely experience, but we can’t help succumbing to the other’s blood, and to the slaughter will inevitably ensue. When we walk out of this house, people are going to die from our hands. It’s a certainty. The only question is ‘how many of them?’ Even if we flew three thousand miles away from Herrick, we can’t stay away from each other and we can’t escape from our own skins.”

The hope and strength that had built in Mitchell deflated at once and he felt pathetic for even having entertained that thought. “Why does it break my heart?”  

Anders laid his hand upon his chest. “Just be happy that you still have one.”

Mitchell could see his own sadness reflecting in Anders’ eyes, even if his lover was not as keen as he was to voice his regrets. “Hold me for a bit, while I pretend that everything you said isn’t true.”

“Okay.”  

Comforting arms closed around his waist and shoulders and Mitchell hid his sorrow in the crook of Anders’ neck. What had they done to deserve to be cursed that way? They had done plenty of horrible things, and maybe they deserved to suffer now, but before that, they were only two young men gone fighting for their country. Perhaps they should have both died on that battlefield: but the possibility of an honorable death had also been robbed from them.

His mind had made up many enemies threatening his relationship with Anders: Dawn, Herrick, Lauren… But they were nothing more than paper tigers. The real enemy was the blood: it would always come between them. It would always spoil everything.

“We should go back to my place,” Anders suggested. “I have the guest room ready  for you, but tonight you’ll be in my bed.”

Even if he agreed with the plan, Mitchell was not exactly in a hurry to leave the warm cocoon of the bed, and the flat of Anders’ foot tracing the curve of his calf under the sheets did nothing to convince him. He kept Anders against his chest and tried to delay their parting as long as possible, until his stomach called him to order with a growl accompanied by a painful cramp that made him wince.

“And since we are both hungry as fuck,” Anders remarked, in order to lighten the mood. “I’m going to grab us someone on the way home. How does that sound?”

Mitchell refrained from answering. The prospect of a hunt was just as awful as it was tempting.  He sat at the edge of the bed and grabbed his clothes.

A white cardboard square slipped out of his trousers’ pocket and landed on the carpet. He leant down and picked it up. It was the invitation to the party. He turned the bedside lamp on and stared at the red symbol drawn at the back until Anders finished dressing up and joined him.

“Did you draw that on the invitation?” Mitchell asked, showing his lover the back of the card when Anders sat by his side.

“No. I didn’t. It was already there when I got it in the mail. Why?”

“Have you ever seen this before?”

The enigmatic question made Anders frown. “Of course I did. It’s the letter ‘x’. “

“No. It’s a family tree,” Mitchell corrected.  

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, but I think the one who sent it to you does.”

Anders’ puzzled look shifted from Mitchell’s face to the red symbol, and back to him. “Make sense.”

He handed the card to Anders in order to free his hands and put on his underwear and trousers. “Listen, I might be wrong,” Mitchell began. “But when we were in Dublin, I had this dream…. Well it wasn’t really a dream. Sleep triggered an old memory of Herrick. I have those more often than I care. Anyways. I remembered Herrick showing me something similar: an “x” drawn with blood on a piece of bed sheet. According to him, it represented a family tree. He didn’t explain any further, but I think it has something to do with us and with the whole vampire-twins business.”

“You seem to suspect foul play. You think Herrick sent that invitation to me?”

“I don’t know, but I’m in a mood to find out,” Mitchell decided, reaching for his shirt. “Obviously, someone wants us to be here tonight.”

Anders fidgeted with the card, stood from the bed and waited until Mitchell was ready to leave. He gave him the invitation back. “Don’t you find it odd that the mansion is full of people, but that we had not heard a single sound coming from downstairs since we got in this room?”

Now that he mentioned it, Mitchell had to agree it was indeed quite strange. He pocketed the card and laid his hand on the door knob. “You said you wanted to go home, but I won’t leave until I know what is going on here.”

Anders gave a sharp nod. “Where you go I will go,” he assured him, and Mitchell pushed the door.

Nothing could have ever prepared them for the spectacle waiting for them outside the room: a little more than fifty vampires, silent and staring, like rows of marble statues at each side of the corridor. Mitchell couldn’t help but wonder how long they had been standing there and waiting for them.  He vaguely felt Anders’ fingers gripping the back of his sleeve, trying to hold him back, but he stepped into the corridor forcing his mate to follow him. The vampires massed there blocked one end of the hallway, only leaving Mitchell and Anders one possibility: walk down toward the other end of the corridor.

Mitchell did not know most of the vampires present, but some of the faces were familiar: Felicity Gallagher, Ivan, Daisy and also some of the old ones he had met through Herrick over the years. None of the vampires said anything as the couple walked past them. One could have heard a pin drop. The only sounds troubling the heavy silence were Mitchell and Anders’ steps on the marble floor. Mitchell thought of the Greek myth of the Styx River that the dead must cross to get to the underworld. As the deceased were led across the river on a boat, they could see through the fog the phantom faces of people that they had known during their life. The scene they were living left him with the same impression, except that most of the pale apparitions were strangers, and they were not benevolent in the slightest. They were judging and hostile.

Mitchell and Anders walked down this death row to another door. There, Windham, one of the old ones, held a door opened. He was one of the oldest and most ruthless vampires Mitchell had ever met and his mere presence sent a shiver down the Irishman’s spine.

“Go on,” Windham ordered the couple, doing an impatient head move. “They are waiting for you.”  

Not knowing who “ _they_ ” could be, Mitchell felt the instinct to vamp out and tear some throats open. But even with Anders’ blood inside his veins, there were too many opponents. He did not stand a chance. Cooperating was the only good option. Besides, curiosity was beating at his fingertips. This was reckless, possibly suicidal, but Mitchell had to get much needed answers and closure.

Windham led them to the lavish master suite and made his exit right away.

The person waiting for them was a man clad in a tweed suit, sat in a brocade armchair like the king Lear on his throne. He was tall and slim, with a high forehead and high brows. His ashen and waxy face was carved with the scars of a disease long eradicated. This face inspired weariness to anybody who looked at it more than a few seconds. The man had a long cane with an hourglass as a pommel, but he stood without the use of it. Mitchell had never seen that man, and yet, there was this feeling of chary familiarity emanating from the stranger’s whole persona.

“John Mitchell and Anders Johnson: the infamous twins of Guillemont,” the man greeted them, exposing blackened teeth as he smiled. “It’s nice of you to come here on your own, it would have been bothersome to have to take more drastic measures.”

Anders and Mitchell exchanged a furtive glance. Guillemont was the little French town that had given its name to the battlefield where they had been recruited by Herrick.

“Well, the whole mob you’ve got outside did not leave us much choice,” Anders remarked.  

“We are just pleased by your lack of resistance,” said a suave feminine voice from behind a large curtain that separated the room from the rest of the suite. The person who had spoken then appeared from behind the curtain and Mitchell could have sworn he heard the sound of his and Anders’ jaw drop simultaneously.  

The woman was of an astonishing beauty: the exact opposite of the slim man with rotten teeth who, they immediately figured out, was her mate. She had dark and soulful eyes. These eyes, Mitchell thought, might have seen hundreds of wars and started a thousand more. She was made for bewitching and kill.

“My name is Illyria,” she introduced herself softly.  “And you probably know my mate here from reputation,” she added, making a graceful gesture toward the other vampire.  

The revelation pierced Mitchell like a blade. “Mr. Snow…” he heard himself utter.

Anders too was staring in disbelief. And since, there was no doubt possible. They were in the presence of the very first vampires- the father and mother of all. Mitchell wasn’t sure what the appropriate protocol was: if they had to bow, pay their respects, or adopt any other kind of formal behavior.

Anders settled the matter by doing none of these. “So, you are the shady gombeen who sent me that bogus invitation!” he accused Snow without shame or fear.  

“I did,” Snow confessed, keeping his blood cold despite the insult. He turned to Mitchell and addressed him: “Knowing Herrick as I do, I was sure he would not resist the temptation of giving you a little clue on the mysteries of your birth. You recognized the symbol the second you saw it, did you?”

Mitchell nodded and pulled the invitation from his pocket.

Illyria walked up to Mitchell and took it from his hand. Her fingers brushed against his wrist on purpose. The touch was enticing and chilling at the same time.

“The answers you seek are here. You knocked on the right door, _my child_ ,” she purred stressing the last two words.  

“My child?” Anders repeated, eyebrows knitted in a displeased frown. Seeing that stunning creature coming too close to his male was not to his taste at all. “He’s not your child, we are from the Snow line,” he pointed out.  

“That’s what your venom-father told you, but you are mistaken,” Snow asserted.

“We are Illyrians,” Mitchell muttered, not able to tear his eyes away from the female vampire standing in front of him.

She gave him a coy smile. Her fingers dug into the inside of his wrist, as if searching for an absent pulse. “No, you are not.”   

“That’s not possible,” Anders grunted, growing impatient. “We have to be one or the other.”

Snow tapped his cane to the side of his shoe. “In fact, you are both.”   

“It can’t be…” Mitchell murmured. Illyria’s touch went up his arm. The same unreadable smile was still playing on her lips. He was no better than a fly caught in a black widow’s web.

An interesting shade of reddish jealousy had taken over Anders’ cheeks. “You better cut the crap and tell us the truth,” he demanded. The sooner Mitchell got his answers, the faster Anders could bring him away from that woman who thought that being the oldest among the old ones allowed her to have her paws all over someone else’s mate.

Snow took upon himself to give an explanation. “It all goes back to the war between my descendants and Illyria’s, 660 years ago. Vampires had always more or less fought among themselves, but what happened during the 14th century was a civil war of a whole other level. Our number collapsed. We feared for the complete extinction of our race – our very survival was at stake. We did everything we could to stop the slaughter, but nothing worked…”

“Until we had an idea,” Illyria provided. She had reached Mitchell’s neck, intrigued by the temperature difference between their skins- hers so cold and his so warm. “We thought that if we created a hybrid -- a vampire born from both of us, with our combined venoms and bloods, its mere existence would be an argument strong enough to put an end to the devastating rivalry between our lineages.”

“We knew the enterprise was going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible,” Snow continued. “We selected our victims carefully, choosing the strongest ones, in hope one of them would survive two simultaneous bites. The subjects all died from venom overdose. We had practically given up hope- “

“That’s when Herrick came along,” Anders understood.

“Wait what!?” Mitchell exclaimed. “Herrick is an Old One? He’s your venom-son?” Despite his astonishment, he had to admit it made sense. A lot of sense. “ _Two that becomes one, and one that becomes two.”_ That was the signification of the ‘X’ symbol: two lines that converges into one point and then diverges into two. Snow and Illyria both poured their venom and blood into Herrick, and, from that, he was able to recruit Mitchell and Anders.  “It was because he was a hybrid from the very first vampires that Herrick was the only one able to create twins, is that what you mean?” he asked Snow.

“Yes. Herrick is one of a kind. Recruiting a hybrid was a mistake we made once and never repeated. Herrick was much of a disappointment. He never acted as the peacekeeper we wanted him to be. He always worked for his own interest rather than the greater good of our kind. He sided with my blood line against the Illyrians in the civil war, and it only made it worse.”

“Ultimately, it’s the discovery of new continents that saved my line from annihilation,” Illyria recollected. Her gracious hand slipped away from Mitchell’s neck and down his arm like a silk ribbon. When she took a few steps back, the spell broke and Mitchell realized he had been holding his breath all along. “Herrick saw himself as the chosen One – the one who was bound to accomplish the domination of the vampires over the world. We should have never told him the secret of his existence,” she rued.

“We, as the first vampires, were created at the same exact moment by the devil himself,” Snow said. “It means that we alone have the strength and resistance the race we engendered does not possess. We cannot be killed by fire or by a werewolf attack, and we alone can revive with our blood the vampires who suffered these fates. By recruiting Herrick, we combined the two original essences of the devil in one being. It’s from that knowledge that Herrick figured out he was the only one, besides the devil himself, able to father twin vampires: two beings who would not only be immortal, but practically invincible, and that would provide them with the healing blood. Herrick knew that if he succeeded, he would possess the perfect weapon to protect himself and to make his revolution come true.”

“For over 600 years, he tried to accomplish the tricky recruitment of twins without success,” the female vampire picked up the narration where Snow had left, “until September 1916, when he set eyes on two young soldiers on the battlefield of Guillemont.”

Illyria’s lips quirked into a smirk. She seemed to find enticing the way Anders moved closer to Mitchell almost instinctively, his entire body language orientated in claiming back what was his, now that she had let go of the brunet.

The way Anders tried to shield him like they were on a hunt which safety had been compromised, told Mitchell that his lover would not let his guard down until they’d be out of here. He had also the intuition that leaving the mansion would be far more complicated than anticipated.

“Why us? Why something that had failed for centuries finally worked out with us?” Anders asked.     

Snow walked up to a vintage desk. “It was a fluke, maybe. Or a favorable alignment of the planets,” he speculated, giving a spin to the globe that was used in lieu of a paperweight. “We honestly have no idea.”

Anders clapped his hands once to put an end to the conversation. “Well, that’s wonderful, this little family reunion. And it’s very lovely of you to take some of your precious time to explain all of this, but now that it’s done, if you don’t mind, I’d like to bring my mate home.” He ushered Mitchell to the door, which, of course, turned out to be locked.

Illyria’s eyes had taken a dangerous tint. “We can’t let you leave and give Herrick his weapon back. You understand now why the revolution must not happen.”

“What’s your concern?” Anders sneered. “I thought all of you Old Ones were getting off on world domination!”

Snow sat at the edge of the desk. “Because we’re wiser than William Herrick. We are aware that our survival as a species depends on the striving of humanity. Basic ecology science teaches us what happens to the snakes if the number of frogs decreases dramatically. There is a reason why we find more frogs and mice than snakes in the wild. The balance between predators and prey has to stay in favor of the prey. Herrick thinks he can get on with the mass recruiting and keep only a small number of humans as blood slaves, but it’s bound to fail.”

“So you are not in favor of the revolution,” Mitchell realized.

“We are strongly against it,” Snow confirmed. “No one should tamper with the laws of nature.  And that’s what Herrick did by creating twins. We were quite relieved, at first, when you both turned out to be perfectly normal vampires. But we were fooled by our own hope. You are like water and pure potassium: stable as long as you are kept separated, but deadly once put in contact.”

Taking feline steps with a calculated undulation of her hips, Illyria chose Anders as a new target. He found himself as powerless to resist, just as Mitchell had been in her close presence. Her perfume was the one of a carnivorous flower disguised as a night orchid. She brushed a blond strand from his forehead and her fingers refused to leave his face. “You are undergoing a mutation. It had started from the first moment your blood touched the other’s lips, and from then on, the changes only accelerated. You felt it. I feel it too, when I touch your skin.”

The changes were undeniable: they had experienced fever, their skin was becoming warm again, mirrors could reflect their image… “Are we becoming human again?” Mitchell asked.

“No,” Illyria stated, killing Mitchell’s ultimate hope on the spot. “You are turning into something else.”

“What? What are we becoming?” Anders murmured, in the tone of someone who’s afraid to scare away a rare, exotic bird.

“You are representing a dangerous leap in evolution, an aberration,” she clarified. Mitchell wondered how she managed to speak in a voice that was both soft and implacable. He wished she would also stop touching Anders, but he found himself unable to do anything about it. “You’ve made a new branch grow from the tree of species: a branch carrying a disease that could well be the end of all of us: humans and vampires. No one knows what you are becoming – you’re turning into something that’s neither vampire nor human.”

“What you are hasn’t been named yet… and it never will,” Snow decided. “Herrick’s little experimentation ends tonight. Nothing good ever came from introducing a new predator somewhere nature had not put it in the first place. This is why you have to be removed.”

“Removed?” Mitchell repeated. This conversation was taking a dreadful turn. He should have remembered that curiosity could kill more than cats. He should have dragged Anders out of there when he had the chance, but they had let their primal instinct to mate take control of their actions instead.

Snow threw a grim chuckle to the ceiling. “Sorry, I’m being cryptic again. Let me rephrase it: you have to die.”  

In an excess of bravery, Anders pushed Illyria away and, pulling out his retractable hornbeam stake from his keychain, he faced Snow. “Well, we had a little private party of our own earlier and as a result, we are invulnerable: so good luck with that!”  

“We’re aware,” Illyria snapped, stung to the quick by the sudden and violent rejection. “That’s why we need your consensual participation.”

“You need us to commit suicide? Are you fucking deranged?” Anders yelled.

“We are quite sane, thank you very much,” Snow said, calm and collected.

Already on the warpath, Anders took his jacket off and tossed it aside, ready to fight. “You have no right to make us pay for _your_ mistake!” Mitchell saw him reach as a reflex for a holster and a gun he had made the mistake of leaving at home. “Why haven’t you killed Herrick instead, since he is the root of the problem!” he raged.

“You should ask Mitchell what happens when someone like Herrick is removed without precautions. You two, on the other side, are just means to an end. It’s safer for everyone to take you out first.” In Snow’s pragmatic reasoning, there was no place for sentiment.

“And what if we refuse your kind offer to die?” Anders groaned.

“We’ll force you to accompany us to Brazil where you’ll be kept prisoner, locked away from each other until the effect of your last coupling wears off. I suspect at this stage it could take years. And then, we’ll kill you old fashion: with a stake in the heart. We simply cannot let you live. Allowing you to walk free would mean the annihilation of the world as we know it and everyone would suffer; not only the vampires, but the humans, the ghosts and the werewolves as well.”

“Try to come anywhere near us and you’ll regret it,” Anders threatened. He vamped out and snarled, low and menacing. All of his ire and fear pulsated through the air and went through Mitchell’s chest like a dark wave. He could sense every nuance of Anders’ angst. He, on the other side, was filled with sadness rather than contempt.  

Illyria’s panther stare had shifted from Anders to him. She recognized in him a promising air of resignation.

Anders turned around and when he saw Mitchell’s expression, his fangs instantly retracted into place and his eyes went back to their usual pale color. “Please, tell me you are not actually considering this,” he begged.  

Mitchell took a good look at the man he had come to love beyond reason and against all common sense. Together, they were a tragedy waiting to happen. The image of Anders with snowflakes in his hair, standing on the tomb of his brothers in that Irish cemetery came back to his mind. _A flower in an ice desert._ Anders had never belonged in this world of death, blood and destruction. Perhaps, Mitchell’s final task was not to let that very world corrupt his beautiful lover any longer.

A heavy silence fell on the luxurious suite, until Anders exploded again. “The world being destroyed because of us!? Come on, Mitchell!! Why should we believe them? You know that’s bullshit!!”

Mitchell crossed the short distance separating him from his mate, despite the real risk to be lashed at. “Is it, though? It feels very real to me.” When he placed his hands on his waist, Anders shuddered. Panic made the blond man’s pupils dilated to their maximum. “I don’t know if our presence in this world really threatens it,” Mitchell soothed. “I can’t see the future, but I know you were right earlier when you said it’s only going to get worse. We are never going to be allowed a fresh start together, with a clean slate. All we are going to do is add bodies to the pile: add new screams to our nightmares. There is no end to our curse.”

“So _this_ is the end, is it?” Anders breathed, not quite able to get over the initial shock of Mitchell’s surrender. “You are not going to put up a fight.”

“I would just be delaying the inevitable.” Mitchell paused to cup his lover’s face.  “I love you, Anders.” His voice broke on his lover’s name. “I love you, but I don’t want to carry on with this existence if it means turning each other into something we don’t want to be. In Dundalk, when you killed that girl, you told me you were tired of being a monster. I am too. If we let this continue, we’ll lose all respect for ourselves: we’ll live in eternal guilt and fear. It’s the last thing I want for you.”

Anders grabbed the front of Mitchell’s shirt in a tight fist. For a second, Mitchell was sure he was about to be tossed away, but he understood that the other man was just holding on to him. “You’re right,” Anders admitted, lowering his gaze for a second. The hornbeam stake slipped from his hand and fell to the floor. “ _Fuck_. Why are you right? I hate it when you are right.”

“I wish I wasn’t, trust me.”

Mitchell had nearly forgotten that their vampire ancestors were still in the room, until Anders turned away to address them. “What do we have to do? It’s not like we can physically kill ourselves.”

The old ones exchanged a knowing look and Snow let his apex female provide the answer. “All you have to do is to make the decision.”

“That’s all?”

She nodded.

“And then what?”

“Then this happens,” Snow said. He lifted his cane and pointed at the plain, white wall behind the embraced couple, except that it was not just a wall anymore. A door had appeared out of nowhere. It was an ancient, double-paneled door of varnished pinewood: the kind of door that would open on a courtyard or a garden.  

“Anders… It’s our door…” Mitchell whispered, even if he was aware there was no way Anders could have missed it.

Snow and Illyria had lived several centuries and seen all sorts of horrible and amazing things, but it was the first time they saw one door to the afterlife appear for two people. This wasn’t the kind of thing you usually shared with another person.   

Letting go of his mate, Mitchell rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck and make his fingers crack like a boxer about to enter the ring. He had to avoid thinking it through, or else he would never be able to do it. Every second that passed was a second during which he could change his mind. This had to be done, and it had to be now. It had to be tonight, or else he would have never find the courage again. “Are you ready?” he asked Anders.

“How can I be ready for that? I’m not. I never will. But I meant it when I said that where you go, I will go,” Anders assured him.  “There is just one last thing I have to do.”  

The thought alone was enough to summon the object of his thoughts into the room. Dawn stormed in by crossing through a wall.  “Anders Johnson!!!” she yelled. “What do you think you are doing?! Stay away from that door!” She rushed to him with all the force of her poltergeist energy. It was like being hit by a train and Anders nearly fell back from the shock.

Mitchell figured it was better if he kept from intervening. Illyria and Snow seemed to share his course of action.

Anders managed to seize the ghost’s elbows, to stop her from crushing him into the opposite wall in her hurry to keep him away from his death door.

Dawn shook her head in frantic denial. “You can’t do that, Anders! Don’t do that to me!”  

“I know it’s crazy, but it’s what I have to do,” he told her. “The careless time where I could be just an awesome party guy: it’s over. I’m done using our friendship as an excuse to hide the fact I’m a murderer. If I walk away from this, I’ll make more people suffer.”

His words had no soothing effect on her. Dawn was inconsolable. “It’s because of me that you came to Bristol! It’s for me that we chose to move to London! I brought you here to your demise. I refuse that it ends this way!”

“No,” he affirmed, squeezing her elbows in a way he hoped would steady her. “Nothing's your fault. You did brilliant, Dawn, as always. You did what you had to do by accompanying me all the way here, to this very moment, so I can meet my fate. If this wasn’t what you had to do, you’d be fading right now and you are not. Look! You’ve never been more solid,” he remarked, letting his hands climb up to her shoulders for emphasis. “It means that you’ve finished your unfinished business.” His voice got thick with emotion. He had to pause to prevent it from spilling all out. “Saving the world from me… that was a fitting task for you,” he completed.

She shook her head again. “No. Please. You’re meant to live forever. It’s not over. How can you say things like that? How can you give up?”

Standing in the corner in silence like an uninvited guest, Mitchell had a lump in his throat. Witnessing Anders’ grief was already painful enough in itself, but the whole scene also reminded him of his own parting from Annie and George, and he realized it was truly over. He would never see them again.

“That’s what I want,” Anders asserted. “I want for you to be free from your duty toward me, so you can rest in peace at last.”

A soft tremor crossed her body and her hands were light and trembling like leaves in the wind when she took his. Her fingers pressed into his palms as she closed her eyes and wept.

It wasn’t there, and suddenly it was. In the blink of an eye it had appeared: a door, just besides the one waiting for Anders and Mitchell. The door reminded Anders of the one of a rustic seaside cottage. Its turquoise paint seemed crackled from the work of time and a constant, salty and sandy ocean breeze. Anders was the first one to note its presence, since Dawn had her back to it.

“It’s here, isn’t it?” Dawn asked him, her eyes wide all of a sudden, like the ones of an alarmed fawn.

“Yes,” he breathed. He wanted to tell her not to be afraid, but he was petrified himself. He tried to smile at her, but instead, a tear ran down his cheek.

He had never allowed himself to cry in front of her: out of pride and shame. She reached for his face and dried the transparent tear with the pad of her thumb.

“I don’t want to leave you.” Her protest was weaker this time. “I’m not allowed to-“

He drew her into his arms to put an end to her doubts. “You don’t owe me anything, Dawn. I’m a selfish bastard, but not enough to hold you back. I’d be a true arsehole if I did that,” he whispered only for her to hear. He kissed her hair and he pestered himself when one of his tears fell on her bare shoulder. _It’s so freaking dumb_ , he thought, _that_ _I have so much to say now that there is so little time left_. “I had a long, dark life, but you were the one ray of sunshine that made this last decade bearable. You are the warmest, nicest person in the world, and you deserve to walk in that light I know is waiting for you the other side of this door.”

She pulled back. “Perhaps you can come with me?” she suggested. “And Mitchell too?” she added, looking over at the dark-haired man.

Mitchell’s dropped his gaze and gulped.

“I’m sorry, Dawn. That’s not how it works. But wherever I am, I’ll be fine,” Anders attempted to reassure her. “I’ll find a way to be alright. Mitchell will be with me after all.” He exchanged a small, teary smile with his lover.

Dawn nodded and he knew she had made the right decision.

They fell into an ultimate embrace.

“I should have told you sooner, and more often, but…I…” Anders stuttered, the words failing him in the urgency of expressing himself. If only he had had more practice at that sort of things.

Dawn saved him the ordeal. “I love you too,” she sobbed.  

“I know you do. More than I ever deserved.”

The ghost parted from her protégé with a brush of lips to his rough cheek. When Anders lost the fleeting touch of her hands in his, he felt something snap inside him like an elastic band. It hurt, but less than he thought it would. His conscience was in peace.  

A clear, white light filled the room when she pulled the turquoise door open. She looked back at Anders one last time and a smile illuminate her features. She entered the afterlife with a joyful skip, like a little girl who discovered the sensation of the morning dew under her feet for the first time.

The door closed and evaporated instantly, as if it had never existed at all, leaving Anders to stare through his tears at the dry, even surface of the wall.

Mitchell wanted to comfort his mate. He took a step toward him but wavered, not knowing if his affection would be welcomed.

Snow tapped his index on the golden watch to his wrist. “This was all very touching, but your door awaits. Needless to say, bad things happen if you turn down death when it kindly presents itself.”  

Anders hastened to dry his tears with the sleeve of his jacket and sniffled. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”  

“What will happen with Herrick once we are gone?” Mitchell asked Illyria.

“He’ll be dealt with in due time,” she assured him.

Finding a new determination in himself, Anders was already at the pine door. They had seen light filtering from the space under Dawn’s door, but it was different with this one. There was no light but a thick darkness that seemed to devour every color it touched.

The brass door handle was cold when Mitchell touched it.  “What’s on the other side, you think? Purgatory?”

“No,” Anders replied. “It’s hell that’s waiting for us.”

Mitchell gave him a sidelong glance. “You afraid?”

“Yes.”

He took Anders’ hand. “Me too.”

 

 

 

 

**to be continued....**

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter to go! Thanks for reading, folks!
> 
>  
> 
> That very awesome piece of art at the end had been drawn by @makojupiter on tumblr.


	17. No Man's Land

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tremendous amount of thanks and hugs to my dearest Katyushha who helped me through this adventure from start to finish.

 

The second they opened their door, a swarm of black particles like millions of flies engulfed Anders and Mitchell and dragged them in.

Faceless men with sticks and ropes: Mitchell had always been told that they were the ones dragging vampires to hell. He was so convinced that this was about to happen to him: that he’d be beaten mercilessly that his reflex was to brace himself, letting go of Anders’ hand as he did. He immediately regretted it. Darkness closed around him and crushed him like a fist. Panic rose in his throat in an icy spur. He lost balance and was sucked down into a pit. He fell, powerless to grasp anything to slow his drop.

A white flash of pain crossed him when he hit the ground, hard enough to turn every one of his bones into dust.

He lay there, motionless, unable to utter a sound or move a single finger.

At some point, he managed a croaky moan and tears of pain escaped him. It took several long minutes before he could unfold his legs, and many more before he got back on his feet.   

The darkness surrounding him was incredibly thick, almost slimy. It stuck to his eyeballs, making it impossible to even see his own nose, let alone his hands or feet. The slime oozed into his throat when he shouted out his lover’s name.

“Anders!”

No answer came. No echo either. The darkness ingurgitated the sound and spat nothing back.  

“ANDERS!” Mitchell yelled again. “ANDERS!” It was an order as well as a supplication. “Anders!” The fear alone was enough to mask the ache that wrung Mitchell’s limbs.

If Anders could not come, then Mitchell would go to him.

He started limping in a random direction, reaching in front of him to palliate his blindness. No obstacle barred his way, however.

He walked for hours on end, with no way to determine if he was going in circle or straight ahead. He only stopped now and then to throw a shout to the void, hoping for a reply.

Hell was an empty world, he realized. The only tangible thing was the floor under his feet. It muffled the sound of his footsteps despite its hard consistency. If this was a room, it must be gigantic. It seemed to Mitchell that it had no beginning and no end: no walls and no door… no exit.

Was this really hell? No punishment, no torture, no demons and devil: just this empty prison? If anything, this fate suddenly seemed even worse. For all he knew, Anders could be standing a few steps from him but unable to hear or see him. They could keep on searching for all eternity.

“Anders!!!”

He kept wandering in the dark for a very long time, until he lost all sense of time, distance or even space. His feet were on the ground, but he was not even sure what was up and what was down anymore. Despite the infinite void around him he suffocated, as if floating in a corpse’s womb. If only he could spot any landmark, touch something or feel a change in the ground, but everything, everywhere was the same. He spinned around, looking without seeing. His movements were slowed down by the density of the “air”, or rather the “substance” in which he progressed.

A sudden mirage in the distance made him stop. He thought at first that his eyes were playing tricks on him. He squinted, but instead of disappearing, the apparition took a more tangible consistency.

At first, it looked like a wall of white mist that thickened by the minute and advanced toward him. He was able to make out silhouettes emerging from the fog bank: people! Finally! They could maybe help him find Anders.

A new energy pumped through him and Mitchell started running toward them. As he came closer, he realized that the white silhouettes were not emerging from inside the fog, they were made of it. It was a whole crowd, the size of a big village, marching like an army through hell’s darkness. They were spirits, but nothing like he had ever seen before.

“Hey! You!” he hailed them. “I’m searching for a man: a blond man! We got here through the same door! Have you seen him?”

The white silhouettes got closer and they all stopped, ten steps away from him. There were men and women of every age among them, though most were young. Their insubstantial bodies still wore the shapes of clothes from different decades of the 20th century.

All the faces were vaguely familiar, in a way that made Mitchell’s throat tighten. “Who are you?”

Three thousand mouths opened and replied in sync. “Retribution.”

His instincts urged Mitchell to run away, but all of his muscles were paralyzed, like glued to their adjacent bone.

It did not take him long before he could pinpoint what all those people had in common: they had been murdered, all by the same individual…. him.

He had never dared count his victims. It was the first time he could measure the extent of his massacre. He had wiped out the equivalent of a small town. All the faces he had prayed to forget were now exposed to his eyes, and he could not look away.

One of the spirits, a young woman, stepped forward. Blood turned into ice in Mitchell’s veins. The Blue Sundress girl. She had come to Barry Island for a holiday with her fiancé and her parents during the summer of 1957. She would never go home again. Mitchell did not remember her name. Perhaps he had never known. It had always been easier for him to deal with the guilt if his victims stayed anonymous.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, holding her unfeeling and empty stare. “I’m so sorry. Listen, I want to make amends, for everything I’ve done. Just, please, tell me where Anders is.”

She did not budge at first, the other silent witnesses stayed put as well.

Without warning, she placed her hand upon Mitchell’s chest. A strange vibration irradiated from her. The fog that gave her a human form concentrated into an orb the size of a tennis ball and was sucked into his chest. Mitchell gasped. Eyes wide, he staggered, but managed to keep his balance. What the hell just happened? She had literally disappeared _into_ him.  

He was disorientated for a second, before the pain and the fear kicked in.

He clasped a hand to the side of his neck. Something invisible was biting him there: he could feel the sharp fangs piercing and shredding his skin. The sensation was atrocious: like acid poured into a gaping wound. In vain, he struggled against the invisible attacker. He tried to scream but a phantom hand gripped his throat tight, strangling him.

It wasn’t only the pain and the panic that tortured him: it was also the sheer distress that came with it: the impression of feeling life slip out of him with every ounce of blood taken by the avid beast.

When he finally expired with tears on his face, it was with the certainty that he would never see his loved ones again.

The pain eased off eventually and Mitchell was left in shock, hugging himself with both arms, trembling and sobbing. He could now see the cruel logic of this retribution. What he had felt was exactly what the Blue Sundress girl went through when Mitchell had drunk from her and left her to die in a dark corner behind the fun park’s Ferris wheel. He had just relived every second of it from her perspective.

Before Mitchell could have the time to recover, another entity had stepped forward. It was a man named Guy, a hitchhiking university student with long, blond hair, that Mitchell had picked up on the road. Guy died during a second night of passion in Mitchell’s hotel room. It was the 29th of October 1978 and it was raining when Mitchell dropped his body into the Thames.

“Please…I’m sorry!” Mitchell begged him. “Don’t hurt me. I didn’t mean to kill you. I never meant to hurt you! It was stronger than me! Please! I’m sorry! ”

Ignoring the supplications, Guy dissolved into a ball of mist and plunged into his throat.

Unbearable pain drilled a hole through Mitchell’s shoulder. His knees buckled under his weight. This time, on top of the distress, he also experienced the betrayal. This is what Guy had felt in his last instants: he had bared his body, he had made himself vulnerable to let a partner touch him, and said partner had taken the opportunity of his vulnerability to strike.

“Stop! Please. Don’t touch me,” Mitchell implored when another spirit approached. He was ready to do or say anything to make them stop, but they were deaf to his beseeching. They would all get their turn.

“I know I deserve this! I know I made you all suffer! Please! I won’t do it again! I promise!”

He doubted they even had the consciousness of their own. They were ambulant pain; only an echo of Mitchell’s crimes.

This time, they were three or four to enter him at the same time. All he could do was scream and cry. They kept coming in waves, with complete disregard for the fact he already couldn’t take it anymore. The worst was that he was the only responsible for this torture. He had done this to them.

He lay on the ground in a foetal position, face drenched in other people’s tears. His throat was on fire from too much screaming. Feeble “pleases” were the only coarse words that could get past his lips.  It was not over. It would never be over. Another spirit knocked the air out of his lungs when it got in through his solar plexus like a bullet.

It seemed like the torment went on for years, until they all got to have a swing at him.

When the last entity left his body, there was not much left of him. No soul came unscathed from living three thousand deaths at once, and Mitchell’s one was mauled.

The darkness and silence were back in full, as was the cold. Mitchell shivered. _“This is worse than anything I’ve ever imagined. It’s all my fault,”_ he thought. _“I should have never convinced Anders to surrender and cross that damn door. Where are you, my poor love? I should have come here alone. Without my blood, at some point Anders would have been back to the state of a normal vampire. The Old Ones would have left him alone. But I could not live without him and I knew it. As a result, none of us liv_ _e_ _anymore. Anders, wherever you are, I hope you can forgive me.”_

He was the only one to blame if they found themselves in such dire straits. No doubt Anders would have to endure the same thing and face the demons of his past. Mitchell feared for him.

_“I have to find Anders… He needs me. I can’t leave him alone. I don’t want to be left alone. He must be here somewhere…”_

The ambient cold was slowly having its effect on Mitchell’s will and senses. He could not stand up, or move his legs, as if they crumbled into dust. He had a hard time thinking. The thread linking each thought unraveled.

_“I don’t see anything, or hear anything. I don’t remember the last time I saw Anders. Something here is blowing out my memories one by one. Please don’t take them away! Don’t take my memories from me. They’re all I have left: my Ma in her lavender Sunday dress; my Da who smelt like tobacco and mint; George pushing his glasses up his nose when he thinks; Annie making tea and the dimples on Anders cheeks: two little pools of mischief and fondness. I have to gather them all, these images, and keep them inside me where no one can touch them.”_

Mitchell scratched at the floor with his nails. It wasn’t made of wood, or marble, or plastic: it was different from anything he knew. He scratched harder, in hope to tear at least a small scrap of it. If only he could hold in his hand something solid, something tangible, that had a shape and a size. It would keep him grounded.

He was so exhausted.

_“I’m trying to conjure a clear image of Anders but it’s blurry. It’s all fading. I remember something blue: could be an eye color, or a piece of clothing. Maybe both. I’m not sure. I’m trying to grasp it, but I can’t. Who is Anders, again? I mean: what is he to me? My brother? Do I even have a brother? I think he is here. I think he came here with me, but how can I be sure? Why can’t I remember?”_

The Vikings had a more accurate depiction of hell than the Christians did. Hell didn’t burn. It was cold and hopeless. It made you numb and snatched the will to fight from you. You had no choice but not let it gnaw every piece of you like maggots with a cadaver.

_“Anders. This name must mean something to me, or else I would not feel that hole in my chest. But Jeezus, I’m so tired. Why am I even trying? It’s useless. I can’t walk and even if I could: where would I go? Is there even somewhere to go? Everything is dark: everything looks the same. It’s chilling me to the bones. It’s killing me slowly. But I am already dead, right? That means death can’t put me out of my misery. There is no point waiting for a relief that will never come.”_

Darkness here was not only an absence of light:  it was a virus that infected you and penetrated every skin pore.  At some point, you made one with oblivion, and Mitchell realized this was happening to him.

_“I’d give anything to feel something. Even pain. Even that. It’d be better than this freezing nothingness. I have to get up and search…I think… but for whom?  Who could that be? Soon I won’t remember my own name. I’m going to lose who I am. I can feel it. My name is John Mitchell. I recollect that at least. What else? My old military assignment. How odd. Still, it’s the last thing I can hold on to. I cannot let go. Not now. I’m not ready._

He mustered all the energy he had left to put his hands over his ears. Hell’s dead silence was precisely what he did not want to hear anymore. 

_“I am the Sergeant John Mitchell, 4_ _th_ _section, 3_ _rd_ _company, 6_ _th_ _battalion, 47_ _th_ _brigade, 16_ _th_ _Irish Division_ … _Sergeant John Mitchell, 4_ _th_ _section, 3_ _rd_ _company, 6_ _th_ _battalion, 47_ _th_ _brigade, 16_ _th_ _Irish Division.”_

He repeated like a mantra, over and over again.

 _“Sergeant John Mitchell, 4t_ _h_ _section, 3_ _rd_ _company, 6_ _th_ _battalion, 47_ _th_ _brigade, 16_ _th_ _Irish Division. Sergeant John Mitchell, 4_ _th_ _section, 3_ _rd_ _company, 6_ _th_ _battalion, 47_ _th_ _brigade, 16_ _th_ _Irish Division. Sergeant John Mitchell, 4_ _th_ _section, 3_ _rd_ _company, 6_ _th_ _battalion, 47_ _th_ _brigade, 16_ _th_ _Irish Division...”_

 

 

 

 

 

“Sergeant John Mitchell, 4th section, 3rd company, 6th battalion, 47th brigade, 16th Irish Division!”

A cup of tea in hand, Captain Murphy looked at Mitchell with a grey eyebrow raised in circumspection. “Thank you, but I already know who you are, Sergeant. Now go brief your men and get them here, will you?”

Stiff as a wood post, Mitchell saluted his superior.  “At once, Sir!” He turned to leave, but his captain hailed him.

“Mitchell!”

“Sir?”                                                                                 

“Today is an important day. I can’t have you unfocused and distracted. It’s vital that you keep concentrated. The men of your section are relying on you. Their lives and our victory is in your hands. You understand me?”  

“I understand, Captain. I’m ready,” Mitchell assured Murphy, before turning away and taking his leave.    

The captain watched him leave, staring at the back of his helmet with his mouth pinched. Mitchell was undoubtedly one of the company’s bests: always alert and ready for action, but it was close to 9AM: the hour zero for the Irish division’s offensive was coming close and the man looked like he was barely out of bed. Murphy took a sip from his cup and winced from the excessive bitterness. He threw the tea away. The forest soil drank it without sharing the officer’s complaints.

In the distance, the explosions of artillery shells punctuated Mitchell’s walk down the path. It led him to the clearing where his section awaited orders. He hoisted the strap of his rifle higher up on his shoulder and fought the urge to slap himself in the face a couple times. He felt like he had just been roused from a sleep deeper than death. It was the strangest impression, giving the reasonable amount of sleep he had gotten last night, albeit O’Sullivan’s pig snores. This dizziness and confusion was a very unwelcomed feeling. He could not and would not let this undermine his leadership or his vigilance. Today, more than ever, he had to be sharper among the sharpest.

Mud stuck under his boots every step of the way. The last few days had been hard on the 16th Irish division. Heavy rain had begun to fall on August 25. It turned the ground into a swamp, preventing the soldiers from digging the assembly trenches. The downpour also blocked routes to the front line, and hence, severely slowed the flow of supplies. In a bout of over-optimism, the higher ranks in the chain of command wanted to open the bombardment on the morning of 29 August. But the sight of the soldiers half buried in mud in the incomplete trenches tempered their eagerness. The rain stopped on August 30th, making the battalions’ preparations easier, but the attack was postponed to September 1st, then postponed again to today: September the 3rd.

The objective was to take Guillemont and Ginchy, two villages that lay on spurs. The German craftsmanship had turned those key positions into fortresses.

The area was the setting for costly fighting since the beginning of July. The British failed to capture the villages eight times already. During the summer, the allies only made some small gain and conquered a mere three miles. Today, Mitchell’s section and the rest of the brigade would direct their attack on Guillemont, aided by English riflemen. Hopefully, this time they would be able to celebrate a complete victory over the Kaiser’s forces.

Mitchell found his soldiers in a wide clearing, gathered around a lorry truck adorned with a bright green shamrock. Some of them were smoking and chatting, others were playing cards. Some sat on wooden boxes to read, writing letters or showing each other photos of their wives and kids. Twenty-seven pairs of eyes lifted to acknowledge him when Mitchell walked up to the truck.

“Break’s over, lads.”  

His announce was met with fewer groans than usual.  

“Is it true at last?” one of the card players asked. “Are we finally going to show them Jerrys how to dance the Irish jig, sarge?”   

Mitchell scanned his men. Some faces were pale and grave, but most of them had a flush of eagerness. A lot of these soldiers were young volunteers from the newly formed Irish Republic, fresh out of training camp. They did not know what was waiting for them in the desolation of no man’s land. Unlike Mitchell, who arrived on the western front in July, they hadn’t experienced chlorine gas attacks, seen body parts hanging from tree branches or witnessed entire companies being mowed down by a rain of machine gun bullets.

“Yes, we attack today, in about an hour from now,” he informed them.

The chiefs of army staff had learnt some lessons since the beginning of summer. They were done attacking at dawn. It left too much time for the Germans to organize a counterattack. Mitchell gathered his men around him and explained the plan of attack. He described what Murphy had showed him on the battlefield map. They would march out the first line of trenches outside Trône woods and up the slope that led to the villages. The enemy had the upper position. The approaches to the village were bare and overlooked by German posts in Leuze Wood. A quarry West of the village and the ground to the south, from Maltzhorn Farm to Angle Wood and Falfemont Farm, had been fortified. The mission of the 4th section was simple: attack in one, deadly wave, along with the rest of the battalion, clear the path to the village and clean the trenches one after another.   

Despite the new strategies, it would be difficult to even reach the first German positions. Mitchell knew it too well. He still made sure to give his men hope: have them primed and optimistic.

In December 1915, when the Irish troops first arrived on the battlefield of the Somme, the English general who inspected them reported that the soldiers were all old and whiskey-soaked – with bad weapons and rotten boots: a sorry show. Today was the day when they’d make the English swallow their pride. They’d show them how fiercely the gallant sons of Eire fought.   

A few minutes before the hour zero of the attack, Mitchell and his section took up their position in the trenches. Nothing separated them from the enemy anymore but the three devastated miles of no man’s land: a desert of muddy craters, barb wires and rotting corpses that the shortage of willing workforce had made impossible to retrieve.

Mitchell wiped his brow and checked his gear again. He had everything: his rifle, the revolver his uncles had clubbed together to buy him, his hand grenade, his helmet, his gas mask, the last letter from his mother… And since, he could not get rid of the crippling feeling that he was forgetting something important, that he was missing something vital…

An artillery shell decapitated a tree in a sinister crack, snapping him out of his perplex musings.  

The only one who seemed totally at ease in the current situation was Corporal Arthur Hanley. With a cigarette between his lips, he sat down next to Mitchell against one of the corrugated steel sheet that prevented earth from tumbling into the trench.

Before the war, Mitchell and Hanley worked together in the grain store of Dundalk Distillery. When Europe imploded, they enlisted together.

In their infantry company, many boys were from County Louth, but none of them knew Mitchell as well as the corporal. That’s why, when he held out his packet for the dark-haired man, his offer of a cigarette was met with the usual scoff.  “For the last time, Hanley, you know I don’t smoke.”  

“Now is the best time to begin, my friend,” Hanley insisted. “Here. Take this.” He pulled a cigarette out of the packet and slipped it into Mitchell’s pocket. “Tonight, we are going to smoke one together, standing on the ruins of Guillemont city hall.”

Mitchell sighed. “Fine. I’ll take you up on this.” He patted the slight bump in his front pocket for emphasis.    

“Company! To my command!” Captain Murphy shouted. Several shot of artillery from both sides of the battlefield accompanied his orders.

The soldiers rose from their sitting position. Mitchell would be the first of his section to go over the edge. At this point, not butterflies but fully grown ravens flapped their wings madly at the pit of his stomach. He could make it all the way to Guillemont and taste the victory, or be shot down after three steps. He would soon know which one was to be his fate.

“Good luck, John,” Hanley said, giving Mitchell a firm handshake.

“Good luck, Arthur.”

The bombardment intensified and Captain Murphy made an effort to make himself heard over the mayhem. “Bayonets!”

The soldiers obeyed and fixed their bayonet at the tip of their rifle. They were now only a whistle away from the assault.

When the notes of Irish pipes started filling the air and the hearts, Mitchell put his boot on the first step of the ladder.  “Follow me, gentlemen!” he shouted for all his men to hear. “Make your family and Ireland proud!”

Captain Murphy blew his whistle. Mitchell soared out of the trench and threw himself into the mouth of the battle, alongside the rest of the battalion and twenty-seven roaring men in his wake.  

After running for the first hundred meters, Mitchell slowed down to a light jog. He made sure his section was following him closely, not too slow or too fast. They had to march at a steady pace, just behind the wall of smoke, flying earth and fumes created by the falling shells. Since the repeated catastrophes at the beginning of summer, the high command had changed their tactic. Instead of letting the exposed soldiers be taken down by machine guns like ducks during the hunting season, they used the bursts of artillery to hide the battalion's’ progress from the sight of the German gunmen. This did not prevent the enemy from firing at them blindly through the smoke.

The first men around Mitchell started to fall. He threw a look above his shoulder to see O’Sullivan drop: wailing and holding his leg. At the far end of the 4th section’s formation, Private Connolly, a boy of merely nineteen, fell face first. His helmet rolled off his head, the front of it pierced with a hole. Mitchell knew his soldier would not rise again. The wild enthusiasm the soldiers’ displayed in the morning began to turn into fright when confronted with the grim reality. White knuckles gripped the handguards of the rifles.

One of O’Sullivan’s friends was trying to get him back on his feet, but it became clear that the man would not be able to walk, let alone fight.

Stupor and hesitation threatened to spread to the whole section if Mitchell did not take things in hands. They could not afford to slow down or to deal with the dead and the dying, not now. Mitchell made wide gestures to drive them toward their objective. “Keep moving forward! Keep moving!” The longer they stayed in no man’s land, the more men they’d lose for nothing. Their only chance was to reach the enemy lines as fast as possible. From the rear of the section, Corporal Hanley relayed Mitchell’s orders. Despite the casualties, the fourth section resumed their march.

The thick cloud of smoke was their ally, until, after a last volley of shells, the British cannons remained mute.

The Irish division pushed further, but soon, their cover started to dissipate, leaving them completely exposed. The allies had gotten further into no man’s land that they ever did since the beginning of the war on the Somme front, but Mitchell immediately figured out that if they kept mounting a headlong attack without the support of the artillery to hide them, they would only recreate the fiasco of the last months. His section would be wiped out to the last man.

Seconds later, the harsh staccato of machine guns galloped across the barren land, muffling the music of the Irish pipes. Soldiers started dropping like flies again. “Come on, lads! Keep moving!” Mitchell ordered again. _“What is the artillery crew doing? Why aren’t they shooting anymore?”_ In any case he had no control over it and all he could do was to find a way to lead his section to victory with as few casualties as possible and they were already six men down.  

Mitchell spotted a sunken road about two hundreds steps ahead: an unexpected oasis of salvation. It was the perfect spot to wait for the cannons to shoot again or for the second wave of the assault to join forces with them. But would they even manage to get to that temporary shelter? “Fire! Rapid fire!” Mitchell yelled, shouldering his own rifle as he kept on marching forward. “Give ’em beans, boys!”

They were too far for accurate shooting, but it would still force the Germans to hide into their trenches. The fourth section followed their sergeant’s example, but it would only work if the rest of the company did the same. Fortunately, the other sections imitated them, and the companies to their flanks as well.

This desperate measure gave the Irish the opportunity to reach the resting place.

The sunken road was running north and south some five hundred yards to the east of Guillemont. From there, they could assess how well-defended the German stronghold was.

Hanley collapsed at Mitchell side. “Connolly, Newell, Powers and Walsh did not make it,” he informed him. “O’Sullivan and Tracy are still out there, wounded, and McNamara had to carry his cousin here. He’s badly hurt.”  

“I know. And it could have been worse,” Mitchell remarked. “But if we so much as set a toe out of here, we’re going to be slaughtered.”

“If only we could run straight to their dugouts and make them eat a couple grenades,” Hanley regretted as he loaded more bullets into his rifle.  

The magazine of his own rifle was empty as well, but Mitchell just held on to the firearm, not feeling able to do anything about it. He was apprehending the moment when they’d reach the German positions and he’d have to bury his bayonet in some soldier-boy’s stomach. _“I don’t want to kill again. I’ve killed so many already… thousands and thousands.”_ He wondered why this strange thought had occurred to him. He had killed Germans since the beginning of the war, less than ten. It was far from the thousands he felt guilty about. Perhaps, war twisted the wiring in a man’s head enough to make him feel like ten were thousands.

Hanley elbowed him in the ribs. “Bloody hell! They are shelling us with coal boxes now!” Indeed, cries came from lower on the road, where the thick, black smoke coming from the low-velocity shells suffocated the British troops hiding there.

The fourth section was spared for now, but Mitchell’s mind felt like it was full of smoke and fog as well. _“I’m going to kill you too,”_ he thought, staring at his friend. _“I’m going to poison you and shed your blood. I won’t mean to, but it’s still going to happen. You are going to be my first.”_

“Mitchell? You alright, mate?”

“Ye-yes,” he lied. Where were those dreadful thoughts coming from? It was as if someone else was thinking in his own head.

A shell hit the ground near the road, sending a rain of gravel onto their helmets. Mitchell had already seen one of those heavy impact shells hit a trench and kill sixteen soldiers in a single shot. The sound only was for him like a slap in the face. He had to take control of himself. There were twenty men of the 4th section still standing and they all watched him with growing anguish.

If the British did not start to bombard the German positions again, they were all going to die in that trap. The longer they stayed there, the more time it gave to the enemy to organize a counterattack.

Making sure to stay low and close to the ground, Mitchell moved to where Captain Murphy discussed strategy with his sergeant-major. He could hear the swishing of bullets and even feel the wind they created when they passed over his head. The German gunmen were attentive to shoot anything that stuck out.

“How many men have you lost, Mitchell?” the captain asked him without preamble.

“Seven, sir.”

“Now is not the time to give up. We’re closer than ever before,” Murphy said. “This is a position that was almost beyond our dreams a few days ago.”

“With all due respect,” Mitchell began, “we won’t be able to reach the village unless our artillery crew starts shooting again or unless we join force with the second wave of assault, but neither of them seem to be coming.”

Murphy pursed his lips, which gave him the look of a skeptical walrus.  

“I think Mitchell’s right, Captain,” the sergeant-major stressed.

“Alright,” Murphy agreed. “Mitchell, find a man willing to deliver a message to the head quarter. They have to resume the bombarding and send the second wave right now, before it’s too late.”

“Yes, sir.”

To add emphasis on the urgency for action, another shell wiped out a part of the battalion’s 1st company, just as Mitchell was making his way back to where his men rested. He walked by McNamara who was holding his cousin in his arms. The wounded soldier’s face had lost all its colors. For the first time in a long time, Mitchell flinched at the sight of blood and nausea rose into his throat. He contained it.

Byrne, one of the youngest in the section, volunteered when Mitchell exposed the course of action: “I’m as fast an’ steady as any Tommy, Sarge, but I’ve got the courage to do it.”

“You remember the message?” Mitchell asked him one last time, squeezing the boy’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Byrne assured him.

“Go, then. And God bless you.”

Eyes wide, Byrne nodded one last time and rushed up the slope. He would not even get to the other side of the embankment. As soon as he found himself exposed, his body jerked back and he tumbled back down, riddled by bullets. Hanley pulled the boy back by the ankle, but it was too late to save him.

“I’ll go. I’ll deliver the message,” another soldier named Hannigan assured his sergeant.

Mitchell was reluctant to sacrifice another man, but if nobody carried that message, they were all going to die here. “On your way back, watch out for O’Sullivan and Tracy if you can,” he instructed. He hoped the second wave would come with medics and stretcher-bearers.

“I will.”

Hannigan made it out of the sunken-road and he disappeared from their sight, but a minute later, the area was swept with machine-gun fire and Mitchell heard a distinct cry of pain.

“They got him, the bastards!” Corporal Hanley growled in anger.

A coal box fell nearby and black smoke creeped toward the section. “Your masks!! Put your masks on, lads!” Mitchell ordered. “I’m going to deliver this fucking message myself. You’re in charge now, Hanley,” he told his corporal before putting on his own mask. He was not going to send another of his boys to the slaughter. Besides, the smoke had that one advantage that it would cover up his retreat at least for a bit.

He found himself running across no man’s land, down the sloping field, like he had hellhounds on his heels. With an empty rifle for only weapon, this was suicidal at best. When the bullets started whistling about, the temptation of finding shelter into one of the shell holes was strong, but soldiers often got killed or hurt trying to hide. It was always more difficult for gunmen to hit a moving target, so Mitchell did not look back and he kept running.  

Mitchell would not slow down, even if his mask made his breathing erratic and blocked half of his field of sight. His lungs burnt from the effort. In a reckless gesture, he tore the mask from his face and threw it away. The new freedom it gave him was enough to make him sprint across the 200 yards separating him from Trône woods.

The English soldiers of the 5th division were baffled to see him surge out of the no man’s land and into the first trench like a jack in the box. Mitchell grabbed a soldier by the collar. “I need to speak to your superior,” he panted.

Without a word, the Englishman pointed a finger at an officer busy surveying the battlefield in a periscope.

Mitchell scanned the khaki uniform to figure out the man’s rank. “Major!” he hailed, giving a quick salute when the officer acknowledged him with a sharp look of steel grey eyes. “I came from the front carrying a message from Captain Murphy of the sixth division. We found a resting place near the village, but we cannot advance further without your help. We need more Tommies.”

“My hands are tied,” the major replied. “We are all waiting for the artillery to cover us so we can cross the battlefield and reinforce your position.”

“When are they going to start bombarding again?”

“I do not possess this information, just like I have no idea why they stopped. The telephone wire must have been cut by the German’s shells, because we can’t communicate with the H.Q. anymore.”

Anger rolled in hot waves in Mitchell’s chest. “My boys are dying out there,” he growled. “I won’t stay here and twiddle my thumbs.”  

“If you want to go and see what is going on with the artillery crews, I’m not holding you back, sergeant.”

“Haven’t you sent anybody yet?”

“We have, but they did not come back.”

“Fine. I’ll go, then.”

Before leaving on his new mission, Mitchell reloaded his rifle. A voice at the back of his mind whispered to him to be careful even when treading on the ground controlled by the allies. He had a presentiment about unforeseen threats hiding in Trône woods.

Mitchell passed through the set of trenches, until he reached the shade of the trees. The further he walked into the woods and away from the battle, the more afraid he felt. He noted the irony of it.

The battery of cannons occupied a series of small clearings the other side of a stretch of woods. About a hundred steps separated each crew and when Mitchell emerged from the bushes to meet one of them, he found the soldiers idling. Only one of them was doing what he should be: surveying the battlefield with binoculars from a platform at the top of a tree. The gunners stood in haste when Mitchell appeared. At first, they had mistaken him for an officer.

“We are crew number three. We’re supposed to shoot after the first two ones, but they stopped, the telephone is not working and we are out of ammunition,” one of the servicemen explained, pointing at the boxes empty of shells when Mitchell asked for the reason why the bombardment had ceased.

“And you did not send anybody to the depot or to see what were the other crews doing?” Mitchell fumed. The level of incompetency on that battlefield was infuriating.  “We sent Delaney and Travis, but they did not come back yet.”  

Mitchell’s frown deepened. What was it with all the runners disappearing all of a sudden? “ _It’s not like they all decided to desert at the same time,”_ he thought. He decided to go and see for himself what the matter was with the other crews and the supplies.

As he walked further into the woods, the terrifying foreboding was back and it began to claw the inside of his stomach. This was absurd. What could be even scarier than no man’s land? _“Something unnatural,”_ replied a voice at the back of his head.

The second crew, like the third, was waiting on orders and ammunition supply.

Mitchell made his way to the first crew and was astonished to find them all dead and covered in blood. He looked around and saw no sign of explosion to explain what happened.  

He blanched when he crouched down to inspect the bodies. These were not wounds inflicted by bullets or by with a sharp object like a bayonet. The men seemed to have been… bitten on the neck and exsanguinated. What could explain this: German spies testing new, strange weapons or an attack by a pack of stray dogs? Those sounded like the more rational explanations, but doubt still clung to Mitchell’s mind.  

A muffled, strangled cry for help came from the depth of the woods behind Mitchell. He grabbed back his gun and rose. Apart from the rumor of the battle in the distance, the woods were quiet again. Mitchell took the foolish resolution of walking in the direction of the scream.

With every new step he made, his heartbeat accelerated, to the point that it was even faster than when he was running under the enemy’s fire. His hands were so slippery with sweat that his rifle threatened to slip and escape him. He started singing a silly little song in his head, hoping to steady his nerves.

_“Send me away with a smile_

_Brush the tears from eyes and frown_

_It’s all for the best, and I’m off with the rest_

_Of the boys from my own hometown_

_It’s maybe forever that we part_

_And it’s maybe for only a while …”_

He had this hole in his chest since that weird impression of _déjà vu_ when speaking with the captain in the morning. The hole just got bigger ever since and the feeling of grief and worry had now the size of an abyss.  

There was someone he loved, and that he had left behind. He was certain of it now. But he could not remember their face. That painful, blank space in his mind, seemed to hide much more than he could even suspect. He felt heartbroken from a loss so deep it broke everything else with it, and he had no recollection of it ever happening.  

He stopped in his tracks and held his breath. Between the trees and shrubs, he had spotted four men. They wore the uniforms of British army officers. Mitchell should have gone to them and made his report, deliver his message, but something held him back.  Instead, he hid behind a fallen tree stump and observed them from afar.

Two of the men were tall, with darker hair and the third one was shorter than the lot. He had straw blond hair and had his cap tucked under his arm. The fourth one was on his knees, beside the body of an inert soldier lying to the forest ground.

It was an odd scene and Mitchell wondered what they were doing, until the fourth man leaned down and put his mouth to the soldier’s neck, as if giving it an erotic kiss. To his utter horror, Mitchell realized he was feeding on the blood of the agonizing soldier. The other officers did not seem repulsed by this act of barbarity: quite the contrary. They were waiting their turn.

Mitchell was taken by a fit of nausea again, not only because the idea of drinking another human’s blood revolted him, but also because the whole scene was too familiar. Earlier, he had seen himself draining his friend Arthur from his blood. The mental image was still there: like the first page of a gruesome photo album.  He was going to do it: drink blood and kill, or he was had already done it…  

The first memory hit like a kick in the guts, so hard he got his breath knocked out of him. Each heartbeat pumped a new image to his brain. He saw it all: Herrick, Seth, the pain, the awakening, the fangs, the hunger, the escape, the murders, Russia, the twenties, the thirties, Paris, London, more killing, Scotland, Bristol, Vienna, and then Bristol again. He saw the whole 20th century unroll in front of his eyes like a film reel: Cardiff, George, the pink house, Annie, Herrick’s death, Ireland, his parent’s headstone… and Andrew Johnson.

_Anders._

He took a long, shaky breath.

_Anders._

He remembered everything that had happened, and, at the same time, had not happened yet. This collection of memories of the future was injected back into him for good. He was not only that young soldier from Dundalk anymore. He had lived another life before.

Dizzy and panting, Mitchell got back to his feet. It could be enough to make him climb the walls, but instead, his mind felt clearer than it had been all day.

Herrick and the other vampires stood between the cannons and the ammunition depot, killing and feeding on every gunner or runner the crews sent their way. They would kill more if he did not do something. His section was still on the battlefield, dying because Herrick and his friends wanted to have some fun.

Mitchell’s nostrils flared. He was tempted to reach for his revolver. If only he could shoot them all… but those bullets were not going to kill them, and besides he had a new priority now. Anders was out there with the rest of the 16th Irish division, and Mitchell had to get him back to safety before it was too late. He was running out of time to cook up any kind of plan.    

First, he had to leave the scene before the vampires spotted him, then, he’d improvise. The West wind was on his side and masked his scent enough to allow him to walk away undetected. Everything inside Mitchell howled and wailed.  He would not rest until he’d be allowed to hold Anders again, but the version of himself who was a 24 year old sergeant knew his duty was to protect the men from his section and the other Irish soldiers: not only the man he loved.

He ran back to the second artillery crew. They were disconcerted to learn that the members of the first crew were all dead and they did not understand why Mitchell wanted them to take a detour around the woods to get to the ammunition depot instead of just cutting through by the shorter path. Mitchell exercised all his power of persuasion to make sure they’d followed his instructions to the letter, then, he hurried to the trenches again.

The British divisions were still stalled there, waiting, and the soldiers were getting fidgety. Mitchell found the major to whom he had spoken earlier.

“It’s sorted, sir. They are going to start bombarding again,” Mitchell informed him.

“Good,” the major approved. “What was the problem?” he inquired.

Mitchell swallowed. “A shortage of ammunition and an interruption of the communications.” He figured this half lie was better than an answer implying the presence of vampires in disguise among their ranks. He himself still had a hard time wrapping his head around it. “How are my pals fending out there,” Mitchell asked, after the major gave the orders necessary for his men to be ready to attack at any given moment.

The officer stepped aside to make space for Mitchell in front of the periscope. “Look for yourself.”

Mitchell took a look at the image of the battlefield reflected on the mirror at the bottom of the rectangular box. It wasn’t easy to see anything, but at least it seems like the Germans had decided to spare their artillery ammunition and limit the number of shells they dropped on the sunken road. After all the Irish would have to come out at some point: then, they’d be easier to target.  All Mitchell hoped was that his comrades would hang in there long enough for reinforcement to arrive. With his heart and guts twisted, he thought of Anders, caught in that deadly trap with the other infantrymen. Anders was one little candle flame amongst thousands others: would Mitchell know it or feel it if that particular flame was snuffed out.

From the sunken road, the slope toward Guillemont was a forest of wood pikes and bard wires, destined to slow down the troops attempting on taking the German stronghold. Mitchell had the satisfaction to see the first British shells crash in the area and start cleaning out a bit of the obstacles.

In the trenches at the edge of Trône woods, the English soldiers were ready to play their part in history. Mitchell would follow them into battle; not to slay the enemy, but to find his lover. He knew now that the allies were to win the war, with or without his help.

Grey clouds gathered in the sky, but the rumble they could hear in the fields by the Somme River was the one of bombardments and not thunder. The captains blew their whistles and the soldiers arose from underground like an army of ants. Blending amongst the Lancashire Fusiliers, Mitchell took the same path he had threaded not an hour earlier.

No matter how many times you lived this scenario: the disorientation and the terror of seeing the men around scream and fall, to hear the explosions and to smell the smoke and the gunpowder, it would always feel fresh. It was not something one got used to, at least not completely. There was a sort of desensitisation that happened after some time spent at war. Mitchell could jump over a body without looking back, pretending it was just another piece of decor in this strange theater play, and still, he knew those fragments of life would haunt his sleep for a long time.  

The Irish pipes echoed again in the field.

 _“No! No, no, no ,no!”_ Mitchell exclaimed in mind. The second wave had not reached the sunken road yet, but the Irish division, emboldened when they saw the reinforcement arrive and the bombardment begin again, were already leaving it to run up the hill and assail the German positions.  

Unless Anders was wounded, he was part of the renewed assault, and it drove him even further from Mitchell.

Anders was part of the battalion’s second company, but Mitchell did not know which section he belonged to. When Mitchell had left the road earlier, the 2nd company was hiding at a short distance to the south from where the one led by Murphy rested. Mitchell hurried to that spot as soon as he reached the road.

He found the captain of Anders’ company lying on his side, his uniform dotted with multiple shot wounds. The Germans always targeted the officers first to create chaos in the ranks.

A dozen other soldiers lay dead in the same vicinity. His heart thumping with worry and his hands slippery with cold sweat, Mitchell rolled the bodies over to look at the faces. Fortunately, none of them bore the familiar traits he dreaded to see in the stillness of death. A little further down the road, he encountered two stretcher-bearers giving assistance to a soldier with shrapnel in the right thigh.   

“Are you from the 6th battalion’s second company?” Mitchell asked the wounded man as the medics loaded him on the stretcher.

“Yes,” the soldier replied with a wince of pain.

“Do you know Private Johnson? Anders Johnson?”

“Who?”

“People call him Norse God!” Mitchell pressed him.

“Norse God? Oh, yeah, I do. He’s in the 1st section.”

Mitchell grasped the front of the man’s uniform. “Where is he? Is he dead? Is he wounded?”

“Not as far as I know. After the captain was shot, he followed the sergeant-major with the others,” the man explained, lifting a bloodied hand to point a finger toward the ruins of the village. Mitchell couldn’t ask for precision since the stretcher-bearers carried him away.

The British troops had joined the Irishmen on the front. Some sections already penetrated in the first set of German trenches and dismantled some of the machine-gun nests with grenades. Anders could be anywhere. It was like searching a needle bare-handed in a burning haystack. As he watched the battle raging uphill, for the first time Mitchell felt tears prickle at the corner of his eyes.

Abandoning was not an option, however. He’d find Anders or he’d die trying. And if he found him too late, at least they could die side by side, hanging to the same barb wire.

He took the opportunity of a section from the Lancashire Fusiliers passing by to find his courage again. He threw his rifle on top of the embankment, grabbed a root sticking out of the rubble and used it to pull himself atop. He retrieved his rifle and strode toward the enemy lines.

 _Where to look, now? Where to search?_ How to find one single man when all Mitchell could see everywhere was destruction? The Irishmen were already far ahead, invading the German defenses, killing and making prisoners.

Mitchell heard the low whistle of an incoming shell. His reflexes hijacked him and he threw himself prone. It hit twenty meters in front of him, sending shrapnel and rubble bumping against his steel helmet. The shock wave deafened him, and all he could hear was a loud buzz as he got back on his feet with difficulty. The soldiers marching to his right had been less lucky and some of them would not rise again.

Mitchell had to get out of the meat grinder. He set his eyes on his goal: the first line of trenches and dugouts. The buzzing sound in his ear morphed into a shrill, loud enough to muffle the sputtering of machine guns. He pushed forward and accelerated into a full run.  

In their haste to clean as many trenches as possible, the Irish division had neglected the extremities. Five or six German snipers left their dugout and crawled on top of a small hill. Mitchell and the Fusiliers were easy targets and the Germans were determined not to let them through. They had already taken down the two officers in the group. Mitchell was the next on the list. He would have no chance to get to Anders with a bullet in each limb.

He acted with his guts and plunged into the first shell hole he saw.

A corpse at the bottom cushioned his fall. When he rolled off of it and met the opened eyes devoid of life, the good old nausea gripped his throat again. They were four in the false safety of the shell hole: Mitchell and three bodies. Apart from the one he had landed on, there were two others lying in a disorderly pile.

It seemed that Mitchell’s heart would not stop thumping like it wanted to destroy his ribcage. However, the good news was that the buzzing sound had faded and his hearing capacities were on the mend. It allowed him to hear the low groan that came from the pile of bodies beside him. He snapped his head around and saw an arm moving, then a foot. The soldier at the bottom was still alive.  Mitchell hastened to push away the body lying on top to free the unfortunate soldier underneath.

When Mitchell moved closer to check the man’s breathing and injuries, he froze on the spot.

Only a few strands of tousled ginger-blond hair peeked from under the helmet, but Mitchell did not need those to recognize this face. “Anders!” he cried out, in a mix of distress and relief.

There was no reaction at first. Anders’ head lolled back when Mitchell pulled him onto his lap. A bit of blood had trickled from a scratch on Anders’ temple, down his face and to his cheek where it stuck into his light stubble. The blood soiled Mitchell’s fingers when he patted his face, repeating his name and urging him to resurface into consciousness. The pleas became a lament and Mitchell rocked his lover into his arms, praying for a miracle. His Hail Mary was interspersed by trembling apologies. “I’m sorry, Anders. I’m so sorry.”

Another groan made Anders’ chest swell and his eyes blinked open.

“Oh, Jeezus… thank god,” Mitchell addressed whatever divinity could hear at this instant.   

“Am I dead?” Anders croaked, confusion painted all over his face.

“No, you are not.”

“When they threw that potato masher into the shell hole, I really thought it was the end of me,” Anders explained in a thick Irish brogue. In that voice, there was no trace of a Kiwi accent, past or present. “I guess I owe you my life…” He hesitated, until his eyes fell on the three chevrons sewed to Mitchell’s sleeve. “Sergeant,” he completed.  

“I didn’t do anything,” Mitchell corrected. “I think one of the soldiers was in front of you and he caught all the shrapnel. You were knocked out cold by the shockwave.” The way Anders looked at him, so detached, as if he was just some vague acquaintance, made him fear the worst.

“He did not catch all of the shrapnel I’m afraid,” Anders protested. He flinched when he tried to move and Mitchell saw the blood on his leg.

Mitchell checked the injury, but was relieved to find that it was nothing more than a good scratch. A bandage from his first aid pouch, wrapped tightly around the calf would do for now. “You’ll live,” he concluded. “You’ll be good to walk, probably even run.”

Anders sat up, still making sure to stay out of the gunmen’s shooting range. “The Sergeant-major will be happy to hear that,” he ironized. He looked around, at the battle still raging and the two bodies lying close by. He seemed tired and lost for a second. “I know I’ve seen you before,” he noted, glancing at his companion of misfortune. “You are in the 6th battalion as well, aren’t you? I know we’re most likely going to die and you probably don’t care for small talk, but I’m still asking. I don’t think I remember your name.”

Mitchell’s heart sank. He was a stranger to the man in front of him, while, to him, Anders meant everything. “My name is John Mitchell,” he gave back without elaborating on the subject. The mention of his name failed to make Anders react in the way he wanted. Perhaps it was just a matter of time before Anders would remember where he came from, but they could not stay in that shell hole, waiting for a hypothetical epiphany to happen. They risked to see another hand-grenade rolling in.

At least, bullets had stopped flying over their heads, a sign that the Fusiliers managed to clean the trenches and dugouts thoroughly and dislodge the last pocket of resistance. This meant that it would be easier for Mitchell and Anders to make their way out of that hellhole. It would be a challenge to convince Anders to follow him, however, so Mitchell decided that he would not even try to argue. He jumped back on his feet, slung one of Anders’ arm and one of his legs over his shoulders and lifted him from the ground.

“Hey,” Anders yelped, “what the hell are you doing? The battlefield is the other way!”

Already, Mitchell had taken the direction of Trône woods, Anders on his back. “I know. I’m bringing you as far away as possible from the combats.”

“What? This is not how you earn a Victoria Cross!”

“Shut up and pretend you’re wounded.”   

“I _am_ wounded!”

“Pretend to be dead, then,” he cut him off. Anders was a short man, but still heavier than he looked now that Mitchell did not possess vampire strength.

“You’re one crazy mick,” Anders surrendered with a huff and he let himself go against Mitchell’s shoulders, which made him heavier.   

“I’ve been told that, yes.”

Mitchell got the discouraging impression of having run back and forth all day long and now he had this ungrateful, hefty and whiny cargo, but he would not have it any other way, since he carried the most precious thing he possessed.

Every one of his arms and legs muscles burnt from the strain. When the woods were in sight, he felt a new surge of determination and managed to forget the pain.

He climbed the embankment outside the first trench, cursing under his breath. When they saw him make his way down, bending under the weight of the soldier he carried, stretcher-bearers hurried to him. Mitchell refused their help. “I’m going to bring him to the infirmary myself. There are others who need help by the barb wire fencing,” he told them, making a head gesture to drive them into the right direction. His prime goal was to make them go away and forget about him. It worked.

Mitchell had lied. He had no intention of bringing Anders to the infirmary.  He carried him into the woods, but instead of going deeper and toward the artillery crews, he walked along the edge of the forest, in search of a good place to hide and rest.

In a secondary set of trenches, a shell had exploded, killing the six soldiers resting outside the dugout. The area had been abandoned after the explosion. That’s where Mitchell brought Anders. He put him down carefully and sat him with his back on a pile of sand bags. Mitchell went down on one knee. In an almost maternal gesture, he unstrapped Anders’ helmet from under his chin and helped him get rid of it.

Something in Anders’ blue eyes had changed.

“Are you fine? How is your leg?” Mitchell asked.

“You’re an eejit,” Anders said, holding Mitchell’s gaze, “do you know what happens to us if someone catches us deserting like that?”

“They’ll execute us for treason.”

“Yes, exactly,” Anders affirmed, deadly serious. Suddenly, a strange little smile nested at the corner of his mouth. “But you would not be called Big Bad John if you played by the rules, would you?”

Mitchell opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He just stared in disbelief. Slow and tentative, he reached and cupped Anders’ muddy jawline. “You remember everything now, do you?”  

Anders nodded for only reply.

This time, Mitchell forgot his hesitation and he brought Anders’ lips to his. He sighed his relief into their long kiss that his lover returned with the same fervor.

Anders’ fingers found the buttons of his uniform and popped the first three ones open. He slipped his hand under the fabric and pressed it flat on the left pectoral.

 _“He’s feeling my heartbeat,”_ Mitchell realized. _“He’s never felt it before.”_ As he deepened their kiss, a very human sort of heat enveloped him. His hand went to the side of Anders’ neck and he found the pulse racing under the warm skin. The marvellous fluttering of this real, live, human heart left Mitchell in awe for long minutes.  

Their hunger for a physical reunion was cut short when they heard voices and they had to move inside the half-crumbled dugout to hide. They sat there and waited in silence until the voices faded under the distant thundering of the battle.

“When did you start remembering?” Mitchell asked Anders.

“The second you threw me on your back like a bag of turnips. I figured out that if a man was stupid enough to carry me through no man’s land and wish the sheer power of his might alone would shelter us both, I had to be at least a little in love with him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you remembered?”

“You ordered me to shut up and be dead.”

“And since when are you listening to me?” Mitchell wondered.

“You are my superior,” Anders simpered, brushing the chevrons on Mitchell’s uniform with his forefinger. “Besides, I know what you are capable of.”

The soldiers who dug the trench had left wooden sticks in a corner of the dugout to eventually use them as pickets. Mitchell ignored Anders’ flirtatious manners in order to grab one of them. He took his pocket knife from his side bag and started sharpening the end of the stick.

“What are you doing?”

“I saw Herrick, Seth and the others earlier. They’re here in the woods, killing the soldiers. They think they have found the perfect pantry, but I’m not letting them take more men.”

“This is a bad idea, Mitchell,” Anders said. The crease between his eyebrows indicated that he did not like what he heard. “We should get out of here and put as many miles as possible between us and Herrick or our superiors.”

The sharpness of the stake was good enough for him when he tested it with the pad of his thumb.  Mitchell grabbed another piece of wood and repeated the process. “I’ll sort Herrick out and then, we’re gone,” he promised.   

“No. Don’t go there,” Anders insisted. He tried to hold him back by the sleeve, but Mitchell stood up and kept out of reach.   

“After everything he did, you really want to let him walk away? If we allow him to live, he’s going to choose two other poor sods to turn them into twins.”

“We don’t know that!” Anders exclaimed, getting edgier by the minute. “He tried for 600 years before us, and it did not work, and he most probably tried after I ran away and he lost half of the pair. We are the only ones with whom it ever worked. By going after him, you’re offering yourself on a plate.”

Mitchell tucked his two stakes inside his belt and started working on a third one. “He’s not going to get me, because now I know what he’s planning to do.”

To see how fixated his partner was, just contributed to increase Anders’ alarm. “We just managed to get out of hell, literally, for fuck sake! Can’t we take a five minute break before you go on a new crusade?”

Mitchell worked fast and when he had the four stakes he needed to take down Herrick and his henchmen, he told Anders to stay there quietly and wait for his return.  

“Mitchell, wait!” Anders called him before he could leave. “What do you remember of the last hours before you were turned into a vampire?”

Mitchell turned around and looked at Anders with a frown. “Not much. It’s all a blur.”

“Exactly! It’s the same for me. One second I was on the battlefield, and a second later I woke up with fangs in my mouth.”

“Okay, memory loss is common among new-born vampires, so what? Why are you asking me that question?”

“The deal you made with Herrick: about him sparing the life of your men in exchange for your mortality: do you actually remember having made that deal, or Herrick told you afterward that this was the reason why you had agreed on being recruited?”

Mitchell’s frown hardened as he made an effort to remember. “He…. He told me afterward, but I’m sure he was telling the truth. That did sound a lot like something I would have done.”

“Yes, it does,” Anders confirmed. “But have you ever considered the possibility that it was a lie and that things happened differently?”  

Mitchell remained mute. It had never occurred to him that the story of his recruitment could have grey areas.

“What if this is it?” Anders insisted, gesturing to show their surroundings.

“I don’t understand.”

Anders rubbed his face with a sigh. “What if the things that happened in the hours before we were recruited, the ones the venom made us forget, is exactly what is happening right now? What if by going after Herrick you are just kick-starting a sort of time loop that will lead us to the exact point, over and over again? Or maybe this time, a century from now, we make a different choice when we meet with Snow and Illyria and the world ends because of us?”

Mitchell took a minute to consider it, but, in the end, it did not seem to shake his convictions. “This is just all hypothetical. I can’t let Herrick get away.” He gave his lover a last look and headed to the door again.  

“Are you serious?” Anders hissed. “Are you fucking walking out on me, Mitchell?”

“I’m not. I’m going to take care of Herrick, and then I’ll come back for you.”

Anders crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “Lauren was right: you and Herrick -- you are completely obsessed with each other. It’s a sickness!”

“I’m doing it for George and Annie!” Mitchell protested, the fire in his tone matching Anders’.

“They are not even born yet!”

“Maybe, but they will at some point…. and George is going to be killed in 2005 if I don’t prevent him from having his arse beaten up to death in Cardiff by Seth and his idiot friends.”

“And why was Seth in that town in the first place?”

The question took Mitchell by surprise. “They….. they were looking for me,” he recollected. “I had strayed from Herrick again… Wait!? Are you saying that this was my fault?”

“No! I’m not!” Anders rectified. He took a deep breath and he was calmer when he walked up to Mitchell and rested his hand on his arm. “What I’m saying is that in the end, us being in the world, as vampires, for so long… maybe it’s going to make the life of very few people a little better, but it’s going to make the life of a lot of people awfully worse. We were offered a second chance, by whom and for what reason, I don’t know, but I want to take that chance, with you. I’m going to get old, and trust me, that does not rejoice me in the slightest, but maybe, being human, that could be fun for a little while. I want to have a try at it. Don’t you?”  

Mitchell’s eyes seemed to shift from brown to green, then to dark grey and amber as a thousand conflicted thoughts assailed him.

Anders squeezed his arm with gentleness and intent, in an ultimate attempt to make him change his mind. “John. If you ever had any kind of feelings for me, don’t go after Herrick. Jeezus, I’d hate to have to beg for it, but I will if you don’t leave me any other choice.”

Mitchell doubted his lover had ever been so sincere and open with him. He dropped his eyes to the hand holding his forearm. “What should I do, then?”  

“Come with me. Let’s get a life of our own and leave this burden behind. I escaped that battlefield once, and you did as well. This time, we’ll do it as humans and say our own ‘farewell to arms’. ”

His resolve to chase Herrick and remove him from the world like a torn from a foot reeled in the face of Anders’ plea. If anyone could convince Mitchell to drop a righteous fight to follow him to the end of the world, it was that snarky and smart little piece of humanity.

When he pulled the stakes from under his belt, he saw anxiousness growing in Anders’ eyes, but then, he threw the now useless weapons away. Without a warning, he circled his lover’s compact frame and pulled Anders closer. “Fine. Let’s elope together.”

A grin spread on the finely-drawn lips and Mitchell kissed it with a smile of his own. When they parted, they were both panting slightly and dazed by the emotional charge of their exchange. Mitchell rested his forehead against the shorter man’s. He chuckled, brushing Anders’ upper lip with his thumb. “I had completely forgotten you used to wear a mustache.”

“This is 1916, man,” Anders pointed out. “It’s all the rage. The ladies love it.”

Mitchell sniggered again.

“Alright” Anders surrendered. “I’ll shave it when I get the chance.”

Mitchell shook his head. “Nah. Don’t. I think it could grow on me.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end, my friends. I hope you enjoyed the ride. It took me 3 years to finish that story, but I did! 
> 
> This is not quite the end, however, and you can expect a short epilogue very soon. Stay tunned! 
> 
> For those of you who are following my other britchell stories, the end of All Kinds of Lust means that I'm going to get back to writing the Seasons in the North Hills series in a near future. :) 
> 
> Thanks for all your kudos and comments. They mean a lot to me. 
> 
> p.s. The song Mitchell sings to steady his nerves is "Send me Away With a Smile" by John McCormack. It's a slight anachronism since the song came out in 1917, but I hope you can forgive me.


	18. Epilogue

Mitchell thought he was done with trenches after he left the battlefield of the Somme, but apparently, his digging days were far from over. Instead of saving soldiers from a rain of bullets, he aimed to protect the life of a few rows of carrots, spinach and potatoes from the October rain flowing in small streams down the hill.

It was the first year he tried to plant a garden at the back of the house and for anything to be able to grow, the soil had to be well-drained. He was ready to invest the required amount of effort in that project to have the satisfaction of putting fresh vegetables on the table once in a while. If his experiment panned out, next year he’d add new varieties to the list, maybe even herbs. He had seen rosemary and marjoram seeds at the general store in Wakefield and now daydreamt about making preserves for the winter. He even talked agriculture in his sleep, something that earned him the title of ‘most boring man in the world’. But since Anders was still there in their shared bed every morning, Mitchell figured out that he was not boring enough to make him want to leave.

The spring wind was fresh, but the work was hard. Mitchell had stripped to his undershirt earlier. The piece of clothing was now brown with mud.

He planted his shovel in a clod of earth and, with a single look, scanned the extent of the ditch. “ _I think that’s deep enough_ ,” he told himself. “ _It’s not like I have to dig all the way through to Canada.”_ He wiped the sweat off his brow with the only clean corner of his undershirt and stepped out of the ditch. He crossed the small plowed patch of land that would be the garden to get to the little wood bench where he had left a jerrycan of water. He emptied the last ounces of liquid into his dry throat and he shook the can over his head to get the last drops. Licking his lips, he walked back to his work.

He was about to jump into the ditch again when he noticed the silvereye bird perched on the handle of his shovel. Not wanting to startle the feathery visitor, Mitchell stopped. It was a good omen, he thought, since silvereyes performed valuable services in gardens, eating insects harmful for the plants.    

The gray and yellow bird made three small hops sideway and scrutinized the tall human. The bird threw four or five clear, high-pitched notes in his direction, opened its wings and flew away. Fists on his hips, Mitchell followed the bird’s flight downhill, until it disappeared from his sight.

The afternoon was gently coming down to rest in the soft crook of the valley and the evening would soon tiptoe in. It was way past teatime and Mitchell hadn’t taken any break since the morning. He had done a good part of the work today and decided that the rest of the digging could wait until tomorrow.

He slung his shirt around his neck, shouldered the shovel, hooked a finger in the handle of the empty jerrycan and took a little gravelly path climbing some thirty steps higher up the hill. There, a source was spurting out from between rocks and into a metal pipe. It was there that they collected their water for the needs of every day. Having running water directly in the house was only a dream for most of the farmhouses in the remote areas around Wakefield.

Once the can was full, Mitchell cupped some water in his hands and washed his face in the stream. With his wet hands, he brushed his curls back on his head into some semblance of order.

When he came down the hill and walked around the house, he found Dawn seated on the porch. She stretched and jumped down the stairs when she saw Mitchell appear around the corner.

“Hey! Where have you been?” he asked her. “I know someone who’s going to be happy to see you’re back.”

She mewled and rubbed against the side of his work boot. That was uncharacteristic of her. Putting his tools against the wall, he took this rare opportunity to crouch down and pet her small, furry head.

The grey tabby cat was always wary of Mitchell, keeping as far as possible from him. On the other side, she revered Anders and followed him everywhere.

She had appeared from nowhere one morning of December, when Mitchell and his partner were building the house. She had been taken with Anders immediately, never leaving his side, much to his annoyance. Mitchell referred to her as ‘your cat’, to which Anders vehemently protested. ‘I don’t have a cat’ he grumbled every time Mitchell brought it up. But she had adopted him for good. When Mitchell heard that Anders had named her ‘Dawn’, he knew that Anders finally accepted her indefectible affection as a fact of life.

“Don’t eat the silvereye birds in the garden, okay?” Mitchell asked the cat, with a last, gentle pat on her back. She mewled again as a reply, but he could not tell if they had come to an agreement.

Once in the house, Mitchell headed up the narrow staircase to the attic bedroom. It was small, as was the rest of the house, but it was cozy enough, and when it rained, the tapping sound on the roof just above the bed was melodic and soothing.

He changed his muddy clothes for a white shirt and put on trousers with braces that he left hanging loose on his hips. Dawn curled up on Anders’ pillow and monitored Mitchell’s movements in the room with half-lidded eyes.

When he came back downstairs, Mitchell was whistling a song that had been in his head all day long. He verified that there was wood in the stove, he lit a fire and put the kettle on to make some tea. When the kettle started to whistle along with him, he threw a look at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was six already, the sun was low on the horizon and Anders had yet to come home.

Mitchell ignored the pinch of worry in his stomach in order to fix a supper for both of them. He opened a can of beans. With the rest of the stew from last night, it would be plenty enough.

By the time he was done cooking, the sun was almost gone and Anders was still absent. Mitchell poured himself another cup of tea and he went outside. He sat on the porch and sipped from his cup as he surveyed the gravel path that meandered up from the bottom of the valley.

Three years ago, Anders and he had exchanged their dog tags with corpses outside a dugout to fake their death. It had allowed them to flee far from the war, far from France and even from Europe.

They were not the first Irishmen to leave their country and settle down in New Zealand, but the second half of the 1910s witnessed a new wave of immigration from the British Isles to the South Pacific. The locals met the newcomers with suspicion. Irish people had the unfair reputation of being drunk brawlers. Fortunately, Anders knew how to deal with Kiwis and it had made their integration easier than for most immigrants.

Nevertheless, the time that they had spent between Auckland and Wellington had not been all smooth sailing. They arrived in the country under fake names and with no money in their pockets. They had drifted from one shitty job to the other for over a year, moving often. It had been difficult for both of them and the lack of intimacy, often having to share their sleeping space with several other workmen, had put a strain on their relationship. They had argued often during that year. Mitchell had to live with this deep fear at the bottom of his stomach that they would drift apart and that his lover would leave him.

He’d been afraid to find out that Herrick was right and that blood was the only thing that could keep them together. Now that they were not a vampire couple, not an apex and a follower; now that they were not hunting together and had quit being addicted to each other’s blood, maybe they did not have enough in common anymore. The little time they had been together as vampires: they spent it running away from danger, running away from each other and then back in the other’s arms. Maybe their relationship was not meant to endure the attrition of a mundane life.

Against all odds, Anders had stuck around. In truth, he did not seem to have ever planned on leaving.

It had taken a long time for the fear to abate, but Mitchell had finally realized that Anders was there to stay. After all, nobody could truly understand who Anders was, where he came from and what he had been through but Mitchell.  

In a year and a half of hard work and thanks to Anders’ clever and more or less shady transactions, they had scraped enough money together to move to the South Island. The New Zealand government, in hope for colonizing the area between Wakefield and Mount Richmond, decided to give away some plots of land for free, under the condition that the owners built on the properties and did not only acquire them for land speculation.

Anders had never fancied himself as a farmer, but he had followed Mitchell in this crazy project with a minimal amount of whining. It was the idea of peace and quiet, away from the racism and the bigotry of the big cities that convinced him raising sheep was a life he could handle. They were so far away from civilisation that they could spend weeks without seeing anybody. Fortunately, sheep had nothing to say against two men spending their life together. Animals had a tolerance that humans sometimes lacked.

Mitchell worried that his man would get bored, but the truth was that the farm kept them both quite busy, and besides, it turned out that making Anders happy was far more simple than he expected. A good and vigorous round of lovemaking in the morning usually did the trick. On Sundays, they made it two.   

Sometimes, one of them would have bad dreams, about the war, or others that involved fangs and an enormous amount of blood, but those were getting less and less frequent.

Mitchell could let go of the guilt that had burdened him for a century. The people he had killed … would not be killed -- not in this life. Sometimes, he found it difficult to deal with his decision of not going after Herrick. He struggled with his conscience, knowing that the vampire king was still out there, terrorizing and killing. But at least, Herrick didn’t have Big Bad John as a wingman to help him do so. It was a consolation in itself. And when Mitchell held Anders in his arms, tasted his lips and kissed his pulse point, he couldn’t help thinking that this selfish decision was probably the best he’d ever made.

Officially, Sergeant John Mitchell and Private Anders Johnson both died in the battle of Guillemont. The lovers hadn’t informed their respective families that they were, in fact, still alive. Neither of them were ready to make that move. They decided to stay dead for at least another year. To be completely honest, they weren’t that eager to break that blissful seclusion. They enjoyed being like Robinson Crusoe and Friday, alone on their island.   

The tea had turned cold in Mitchell’s cup. The shadows of the evening discolored the valley, leaving everything basking in silvery light.

A distant barking down the path tore a smile from Mitchell’s lips. Anders was coming home.

The long awaited blond man made his appearance a few minutes later, two panting border collies on his heels. When Anders realized the third dog was missing, Mitchell watched him stop down the road and whistle between his fingers. It took a couple more whistles, some yelling and some curses in Gaelic before the dog finally obeyed and came to its master. Olaf had always been and would ever be the rebel of the trio.

The small pack of sheep dogs around him, Anders crossed the last hundred meters to the house and he was grinning when he saw Mitchell waiting for him on the porch.

“Hey, Black Beauty!”

Mitchell laughed at the nickname. “The horse?”

“What horse?” Anders frowned. “I was referring to your hair color.” He reached the bottom of the stairs. “See what happens when I try to compliment you?”

“Nevermind,” Mitchell decided, putting his tea cup aside. “Kiss me.”  He was pleased to see with what readiness Anders closed the space between them and hastened to obey. His mouth was fresh and soft and his clothes smelt of moss and grass. They let the kiss linger. They could afford it.

“The sheep are all in the East enclosure. I did not lose any this time,” Anders said with no small amount of pride. “The dogs worked great today, I think George is starting to really get into the swing of things.”

“You heard that, Georgie?” Mitchell exclaimed, calling the young dog to him. “I’m so proud of you, buddy,” he cooed, scratching the black and white collie around the collar. He received a few licks to the face for his trouble.  Jealous of her brother, Annie came by as well, tail wagging and demanding attention, which Mitchell was too happy to give her.

Anders took his newsboy cap off and ran a hand through his mussed hair.  “I would kill for a beer.”

“There’s tea,” Mitchell informed him.  

Anders pulled a face. “We are past due for a run to town.”

“Yes. First thing Saturday morning.”

Anders climbed up the stairs and the dogs rushed to the door, begging to be allowed inside. “You want a refill?” he asked Mitchell who nodded and handed him his cup. Anders went inside to feed the dogs and he left the door open. Mitchell stayed outside, breathing in the night air.

Olaf was known for chowing down his food at the speed of light,  and a few minutes later, he was already back outside. He fetched a piece of wood somewhere on the front lawn and dropped it at Mitchell’s feet, his brown eyes full of hope. Mitchell took it and threw it away to Olaf’s delight. They played like that for a while, until Olaf decided he had enough and he lay in the grass to chew on the piece of wood.

Mitchell heard the door closing behind his back. “Come here,” he told Anders softly, patting the space at his side. Anders sat down and gave him his cup of tea.  

The moon rose in the cloudless sky and a sudden breeze played with the branches of the Manoao trees. The comfortable silence and Anders’ presence had Mitchell zone out and, his cup balanced on his lap, he lost himself in thoughts.

At some point, Anders nudged him gently.  “What are you thinking about?” he inquired.  

“Our old life… well, the one we will never get to live,” he answered. He took a gulp of tea before he went on. “What do you miss most about it?”

Anders hummed and took his time to think.  “Microwaves, online porn, wifi, cars with heating seats,” he enumerated, “just cars I guess, also electric razors, my Ipod, music that sounds like it’s not been recorded in a tin can… ”

“That’s all?”

“Pretty much.”

“Not blood?” Mitchell ventured. “I mean, the buzz, the thrill of it…the hunt, the adrenaline.”

Anders shook his head. “Nah,” he said without hesitation. “I don’t think about it anymore. There was a time I thought this lifestyle was glamourous, but I have peace now, and I discovered it’s far more valuable than style.”  

Satisfied by his lover’s answer, Mitchell put an arm around him, nosed through his blond hair and left a kiss on his temple.

“What about you?” Anders asked.

“Me neither, I don’t miss it.”

Anders leaned into Mitchell’s taller form with a smirk. “You still like to bite, though.”

Mitchell returned the mischievous smile. “Old habits die hard I guess.” To add emphasis to his statement, he burrowed his face into the crook of Anders’ neck and nipped at the skin with teeth and lips. It tore an undignified yelp from Anders. Mitchell had forgotten about his cup and he spilled hot tea on his trousers. Fortunately, Anders caught the cup before his partner could burn himself too badly. Mitchell did not seem to mind the burn, because he giggled like a child for the minutes that followed.

Anders shut that wide, sniggering mouth with a kiss and then, he moved closer to place his legs across Mitchell’s lap and rest his head on his shoulder.

They fell silent again, reluctant to disturb the tranquility of the valley.

“To answer your question, this is not how I imagined my life: living here like an elderly Amish couple,” Anders confided in a whisper. “It lacks an open bar and exotic dancers… but on the other side, I’ve got you.”

“Are you saying I’m better than an open bar and a bunch of strippers?”

Anders’ expression was serious. “Yes. I guess I am.”

“Wow! I think _that_ is the best compliment you ever made to me,” Mitchell teased.  

“Well, mark it down.”

“I will, trust me. I’ll carve it in stone - baffle the archeologists of the future.”

Anders scoffed. “I don’t think the archeologists of the future give a rat’s ass about two New Zealand shepherds.”

“Happy people don’t make history,” Mitchell reflected. Anders was a pleasant line of warmth on his flank, and he was pretty sure he could fall asleep just like that.

“Well, I’m happy, and I don’t care about making history or not. I’ve done enough to fuck up history already I guess.” Anders yawned and searched Mitchell’s hand with his. “Christ, I’m knackered. Let’s eat and then, take me to bed,” he demanded. He got back on his feet and pulled Mitchell up.

They called Olaf and the collie followed them into the house.

Before Mitchell closed and locked the door, he straightened the iron crucifix nailed to it. Then, he went to every window to secure the latch and verify that a rosary was still hanging on every one of them. Better be safe than sorry. He knew too well what kind of creatures lurked in the dark world out there.

 

 

**THE END**

 

 

 

 

** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my beta, Katyushha, who helped me through all these years of fangirling and efforts. Thanks also to my life partner who supports me in every aspects of my life, including fanfics, and who helped me with the military stuff of chapter 17. Thanks to Makojupiter for her amazing art that you can see in this chapter and for having encouraged me to carry on and finish this story.  
> And, finally, thanks to all of you who read, liked, commented and appreciate this story.  
> I'm not done writing and you can expect more from my other Mitchers verse soon. :) hugs and kisses  
> Dandelion

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Don't hesitate to share your thoughts. :)


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